


Where I'm Meant To Be

by mischiefmanager



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Pendragon Returns, Bickering, But Arthur Has His Theories, Canon-Compliant, First Kiss, Getting Together, Humor, Just Another Arthur Returns Fic..., M/M, Merlin is Well-Adjusted and Happy, Minus the Angst!, Modern Era, Sex, Shamlessly Gratuitous References to Harry Potter, Smut, The Reason for Arthur's Return is Ambiguous, all that good stuff, idiots being idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-10 11:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12911394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanager/pseuds/mischiefmanager
Summary: The silhouette is backlit from the headlights on the Mini Cooper and he’s maybe hit his head harder than he thought because it almost looks like…“Merlin?”And Merlin feels as though his heart is exploding in his chest because that voice andhis real nameand as he looks up...the golden hair reflected in the light from the car.Arthur Pendragon is standing, completely starkers, in the middle of the road leading up to Lake Avalon.





	1. You're Never Too Old to Be Young

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [THIS](http://relenafanel.tumblr.com/post/163686616898/hey-merthur-fandom-sup) brilliant idea from relenafanel on tumblr.
> 
> I am also on tumblr! You can come talk to me on my main blog mischiefxmanager.tumblr.com or my Merthur blog once-and-future-clotpole.tumblr.com. I’d love to make friends in this amazing fandom!

“With regards to the question of immortality...” Merlin reads aloud.

Julia, sitting across from him, snatches the paper back out of his hands.

“Oops, not that one,” she mutters, digging through her rucksack. “Sorry, that’s for Ethics. I meant to hand you—”

“What’s it about?” he asks.

“Perspective paper,” she explains absently. “What you’d do if you knew you’d never die—the whole concept is rubbish though—imagine even  _ wanting _ to keep living when everyone you’d ever loved was gone. Why I even  _ took  _ that class…”

“That’s the beauty of the world,” Merlin tells her, leaning forward and accepting the proper essay she thrusts at him. “New people are born to replace the old.”

She fixes him with a deeply skeptical glare. “You can’t just  _ replace  _ people,” she says. “You think a person could...you know, find the ‘love of their life’ over and over again? What about siblings, parents...what’s there to keep going for, you know? At a certain point.”

“Is that what you wrote in your paper?” Merlin asks.

She nods.

“It’s an interesting take,” Merlin says, pulling out a drawer and placing her essay in a stack to grade later. “You’re in Professor Young’s Ethics, yeah?”

She nods again, buttoning up her rucksack. “Sorry Professor, thanks for taking my paper.”

“No more late essays,” he tells her, even though this is the last day of classes. Can’t let it get too out of hand, or everyone will learn that he’s really a big softie at heart with a weakness for the tragically disorganised. Julia is a hopeless case and he loves her all the more for it. “See you bright and early.”

She slings her rucksack over her shoulder. “Why six?” she groans. “If you hadn’t just saved my arse, I’d call you the devil.”

“Devil or not, rest up,” he says, leaning back in his chair and smiling at her as she leaves his office.

Once alone, Merlin turns his thoughts back to the matter at hand: the deadline to decide whether or not he’s going to be taking sabbatical next year is fast approaching, and he can tell that the head of the department is  _ not  _ appreciative of his dithering. Of course, by  _ sabbatical  _ Merlin means he intends to do fuck-all for a year and magic up some documentation and research to make it look as though he’s actually been productive. But truth be told, he really is leaning in favour of teaching next year because he adores the students and the faculty and he’s also trying not to think too hard about how he’s reaching that point where he’s going to have to move again to avoid suspicion about the fact that he’s been a fresh-faced young professor for just a  _ little  _ too long.

Every decade or so—sometimes two if he likes what he’s doing well enough to press his luck— Merlin has to pack up again and start over. There is, of course, the option of allowing himself to age up a bit (with the wrinkles and the grey hair and whatnot,) but where’s the fun in living forever with creaky bones and a sore back? Also, the ageing  _ back down  _ is always a bit of a hassle magically-speaking—less enjoyable than it sounds, really—so Merlin usually just finds it easier to change it up with the location and keep himself the same. He can always look really old for a bit whenever he wants to, it’s just that if he does it for too long the liver spots and croaky voice become more stubborn to remove.

There was a couple hundred years back there that Merlin considers the golden age of immortality because the world was vast enough that it never got boring, yet anonymous enough that nobody questioned his absence too closely when he vanished. Right around, say...eighteen to nineteen hundred and fifty. Good times, those were.

_ Now,  _ though, there is the problem of the internet. Which Merlin actually loves most aspects of—an entire universe of information right at his fingertips (all hail the glorious Wikipedia), ordering food online, World of Warcraft...but it also brings with it the fact that people expect him to stay in touch, even if he moves across the country. He can, in theory, just deactivate his Facebook and Instagram—that is, if they’re not obsolete within the next few years—but it  _ does _ seem a bit unkind. There’s a certain amount of emotional detachment needed to essentially ghost everyone he’s got to know each time around, but he tries to do it as gently as possible and has the whole process down to a nicety by now. The internet just adds a new element, but Merlin is confident that after—God, what has it been? Eleven hundred years now?—he won’t be foiled by something as trivial as Twitter.

_ So, _ Merlin thinks, bringing himself back around to the more pressing problem of his employment status next year,  _ that’s one reason for staying.  _ Getting the most out of this brilliant teaching post while he still can.

The prospect of going and faffing about in Ireland or wherever else he can think of is tempting though. Within the UK, of course—Merlin learnt long ago that something about his magic ties him to ancient Albion because he’s fallen gravely ill every time he’s tried to leave, but there’s enough variety in Britain to keep things interesting. He always meets fascinating locals and learns new things—plus this will give him an opportunity to start looking into programming, which Merlin is considering as his next area of expertise because  _ technology is the future,  _ as he keeps hearing. Medieval history/literature/etcetera is always a good fallback, but he likes to mix it up with new skills every so often. Tragically, he occasionally picks something that falls out of fashion a few years later and becomes useless.  _ Rest in peace, jazzercise, pennyfarthings.  _ But programming doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so he figures it’s a safe bet. Also, he’s been wondering if he can combine coding with magic and personalise his iPhone interface that way.  _ One for going. _

His mobile beeps at him and when he pulls it out of his pocket to check why, he sees the time and realises that his office hours are over.

_ Jeremy: pint after work? _

Merlin thinks a moment before replying. Jeremy is a new neighbour—a fun, flirtatious, new neighbour—whom he’s been sort of...hanging out with, for lack of a better term, for the last few weeks. They’ve played Counterstrike together after work, occasionally gone to the pub or the cinema. Sometimes to clubs too. Merlin is...not really sure where it’s going, and Jeremy doesn’t seem in any hurry to explain himself or take things in a particular direction; which suits Merlin just fine. He’s about to reply something along the lines of  _ sure mate, see you at 7?  _ when he remembers the stack of essays in his desk drawer and reluctantly decides that he’d best get cracking on those before final marks are due.

Merlin: _ sorry, too much work. Tomorrow? _

Jeremy: _ Lucky kids _

Merlin: _ haha, why? _

Jeremy: _ i mightve finished uni if id been in ur lessons ;) _

Merlin: _ nice one _

Jeremy: _ but yeah, tomorrow’s grand _

Merlin locks up his office, puts in his headphones and scrolls through his mobile for some good “tune out the sounds of the tube” music. He’s got leftover curry at home but he’s not really feeling like it tonight. There’s a new sushi place not far away from his flat that he’s been meaning to check into and thinks about ordering in, then remembers that the shrimp tempura always got soggy on the way over when he used to order from the Japanese restaurant near his last place.

He ends up sitting at the counter in the sushi restaurant with his stack of papers, trying to work while eating—which he learns is inadvisable for future reference. The countertop isn’t quite big enough for the papers, so he keeps putting them in his lap and half-forgetting about his food while he squints to read in the ambient lighting. Eventually he decides he’s being a bit rude, so he sticks the papers back in his bag and shovels the rest of his sushi in his mouth quickly so he can get back to his flat and finish up at his desk.

He stops to chat with one of the children from the family who lives in the flat next door to him. Alice, she’s called, and she sings him the chorus of  _ I See the Light  _ from  _ Tangled  _ six times in a row before her mother ushers her back inside and apologises profusely to Merlin for  _ wasting your time, you must be very busy.  _ Merlin assures her that he’s not, and that her daughter will undoubtedly be a musical prodigy, before he excuses himself into his flat and ends up settling in on the sofa instead of at his desk.  _ Which is a big mistake. _

He knows it’s a mistake because there’s the television right there as always. He tells himself it’s a mistake when he turns it on, and that it’s a mistake when... Oh dear, there’s Hermione slapping Harry’s hand when he tries to touch the Time Turner. Another  _ Harry Potter _ marathon. It’s the extended editions too, with the deleted scenes. He tells himself it’s a mistake after the end of  _ Prisoner of Azkaban.  _ And then he accepts his fate halfway through  _ Goblet of Fire  _ and falls asleep on the sofa before Harry even leaves Grimmauld Place during  _ Order of the Phoenix. _

He wakes up in the middle of the night, sparing a guilty grimace for the stack of unread essays, before turning off the telly and going to sleep in his actual bed like a proper human being.

Of course, once he gets into bed, he starts thinking and can’t sleep. He scrolls through Tumblr for a bit, then checks his email on his mobile and yup, there’s another message from the department head about  _ can you please give me a straight answer re: next term?  _ And on impulse, even though it’s three in the morning, Merlin suddenly decides that  _ no. _ No, he won’t be there. He’s taking a year off. He replies—foggy brain giving him the courage (stupidity?) to be so rash— presses send, and falls asleep almost instantly.

His mobile battery is nearly dead by the time he wakes up because he’s forgotten to charge it at all last night, and he spends the ride up to the university praying that it won’t die on him halfway there because he likes people in general, but he’s not sure he likes strangers on the tube at five o’clock in the morning. Belatedly, he realises that it would’ve been a good idea to charge up his mobile with a bit of magic before he’d left his flat, but he’s not about to risk a spell here and  _ there it goes, _ battery dead. Silence on the tube. No Belle & Sebastian to keep him company.

He knows it’s a terrible bit of hypocrisy, but he charges up his mobile—in the usual way, not by magic—surreptitiously under the desk during the exam. Julia notices and gives him a scowl, and he shoots her his sweetest smile in reply. 

“I’ll have your final paper marks up online by tomorrow,” Merlin tells the class as they leave. “It’s been lovely!”

Julia stops by his desk on the way out. “Are you teaching next term?” she asks in a would-be casual voice, but Merlin spots the nervous undertone straightaway.

“Er, no,” he admits. “I’m going on sabbatical, actually.”

_ “No, _ why? What more is there to learn about Medieval history?” she demands. “It’s not as if there’s going to be new information. You’re going to be bored and you’ll miss us and it’s not like King Arthur is going to come back from the dead and tell you his whole life story.”

Merlin raises his eyebrows at her. “You never know,” he tells her, certain he looks the picture of seriousness.

She glares daggers at him. “I’ll miss you,” she says finally, in a tone of voice that suggests she wants him to know she’s still cross with him, then leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Merlin sighs, and fidgets with his mobile in his hands under the desk. Suddenly the idea of gallivanting about in Ireland is less appealing than it was at three o’clock this morning. Not because he’s going to miss Julia and the all others too much—though that’s certainly part of it—but because...well.

_ Like King Arthur is going to come back from the dead... _

_ Perhaps, _ Merlin thinks, tapping his fingers against the screen of his mobile,  _ perhaps it’s time to pay another visit to Avalon. _


	2. A Whole New World

Merlin owns a cottage out in a god-forsaken woody swamp because time has not been kind to Lake Avalon and Camelot is, of course, no more. The Sidhe, if they even still exist, have never appeared to have taken notice of his presence, so he had a cottage built for him ages ago, in maybe the nineteen thirties, he thinks, and he pays a builder to trek out there every so often and make sure everything’s in working order—the plumbing, the electricity, and (more recently) the wifi, which has spotty coverage, but Merlin can work with that as long as the aerial is alright. Besides, he only goes out there for his one-weekend-a-year Annual Special Pity Party.

Merlin honest-to-god  _ enjoys _ his life, and that is probably a testament to how resilient the human mind actually is. Sure, there’s the moving and the people he cares about dying, and the ups and downs of history, but there’s never any shortage of interesting things to do and learn and he hasn’t once been in a situation where he felt there was nothing left to know about people. 

There’s new music coming out all the time,  _ good  _ music. He remembers when it was all pianos and violins back in the nineteenth century, and that was all well and good but it was no John Lennon. With all due respect, Merlin would pick  _ Sgt Pepper’s  _ over any concerto in whatever minor or flat any day. And God, he feels lucky to have lived to listen to  _ Viva la Vida  _ and every Weezer album ever made _.  _ He still remembers seeing Freddie Mercury live.

And food. Food is so,  _ so _ good—Merlin ate nothing but bread, meat and gruel for  _ centuries.  _ It’s hard to believe, sometimes, that there was a time before he’d tasted the heaven that is literally every Italian dish ever made. Or Chocolate Shreddies. He makes a point of trying all kinds of cuisine, but he’s a shit cook and also not too proud to admit to his deep, deep love affair with Nacho Cheese Doritos.

Clothes, too, are better. He’s gone through periods of  _ hating  _ the fashion of the time (who can forget the powdered wigs of the seventeen hundreds, ugh) and absolutely reveling in it (nothing like those waistcoats and ascots and top hats—thank you, late nineteenth century!) Merlin feels as though humanity has reached The Sartorial Golden Age because he  _ lives  _ in soft tee shirts and jeans. People don’t even give him shit for running out to the corner shop across the street in flannel tracksuit bottoms and flip flops; no one even  _ notices.  _ Merlin remembers the days when he used to feel obliged to put on actual clothes to go get the paper outside.  _ Shudder.  _

He can wear his hair and beard however he likes now too (thank God handlebar moustaches are out of fashion because Merlin absolutely  _ could not _ grow one for the life of him, not even with  _ magic _ ), so he’s got his hair a bit longer and curling round his ears and he maybe doesn’t shave his face as often as he could but...the stubbly look sort of works on him. At least a lot of the girls in his classes seem to think so.

And, despite recent politics, the state of the world has taken a decided turn for the better in regards to pretty much everything, when looked at from a big-picture perspective. The way people tolerate one another—different races, religions. Nothing’s _fixed,_ not by any stretch of the imagination, but Merlin is the only one around who remembers exactly _how_ bad it used to be. The immortality has skewed him toward optimism. He has actual memories of underground societies of miserable men forced into sexless relationships with women, of “confirmed bachelors”... gay marriage is now legal in loads of places, moreso with every year that passes. He sees couples of all sexes around _all the time_ and it makes him wonder how many of the people he knew back...back then, would’ve been happier that way, had they even considered it as an option. 

Merlin feels this way approximately three hundred and sixty two days out of the year, but he has one weekend (the timing varies from year to year, usually depending on work), where he travels out to his cottage by The Lake Formerly Known as Avalon and thinks about the past, the friends he’s lost to the ages. He dwells the longest on Camelot. On Gaius. Gwen. Lancelot. Gwaine. Morgana, before she was awful. His mother.

And Arthur. Mostly Arthur. Always Arthur.

In the mornings, he smiles to himself as he opens the little box he keeps hidden in a magical compartment in his bedside table, takes out Arthur’s favourite ring and twirls it between his fingers—the only tangible thing he has left of Camelot. Of Arthur.

Arthur, twisting Merlin’s arm behind his back and sending him to the dungeons, the dread in his stomach when he was  ~~rewarded~~ punished for his heroism with a position as Arthur’s manservant. How he’d looked at Arthur and seen his own revulsion mirrored back to him; how certain he was that the dragon was barmy and that—if the universe had any justice—Arthur’s true destiny ought to be a good solid kick in the bum.

And then slowly, insidiously, like all the most wonderful and the most terrible things—rare flowers, deadly poisons—how things changed. When Merlin realised that all of Arthur’s worst faults were met with equal strengths; his arrogance was matched only by his courage, his impatience by steadfastness, his insensitivity by a fiercely protective nature. And then when those faults gave way to other strengths; when his arrogance was tempered by the humility that only seemed to grow with his power, when his patience was tested and proven by the long wait to make Gwen his queen, and how his true character was demonstrated in the depth of his devotion to his subjects—not the least of which was Merlin—and in his willingness to lay down his life for his kingdom.

He remembers those torturous, endless two days, watching the colour drain from Arthur’s face and the light fade from his eyes during that god-forsaken journey to Lake Avalon. He remembers the things Arthur said to him after he revealed his deepest secret; how Arthur couldn’t believe that Merlin had kept this from him, how  _ hurt  _ he was—not so much about the sorcery, Merlin could tell—but the broken trust. Merlin remembers the things he thought but didn’t say. The other secrets. If they’d had more time, even just moments...would Merlin have told him? And God, he remembers the things Arthur said. They repeat over and over in his mind until his head aches with the echoes of Arthur’s fading voice.  _ Just...just...just...hold me. Please. _

And at the end of each day, as the sun sets over the muddy swamp, he scrubs his hands over his wet face and red eyes and remembers _why_ he doesn’t want to be here. He puts Arthur’s ring back in his bedside drawer as he thinks about how he spent nearly an entire century alone, waiting by the shores of the lake for Arthur to return, and what a waste of time that was. The one weekend is always enough to remind him how much he _does_ _not_ _want to do that again,_ because there have been entire world wars that didn’t make him despair as deeply as he’d had from about thirteen hundred to fourteen hundred. At the end of each Pity Party day, he always finds his thoughts wandering off to modern things. Last year he’d stayed awake in the cottage all night comparison shopping for a new car, and gone out and got a Mini Cooper the next day. The colour was his small homage to Camelot—Arthur would’ve approved of the red.

It’s not that he’s forgotten Arthur, it’s just that he understands now. Arthur  _ will _ return. That’s the prophecy, and it’ll come true just like all the other prophecies did. It’s entirely inevitable; whether Merlin waits around by Lake Avalon or not, whether he’s miserable or happy or somewhere in between. And despite his knowledge that their destinies are intertwined and they’re two sides of the same coin and halves of a whole and all that, the fact remains that there has been no Arthur for eleven hundred years, and there has  _ always _ been Merlin. So he made the decision long ago to stop  _ actively waiting,  _ and hasn’t looked back _.  _ He moved into civilisation, eventually to London. He found jobs, some of which he’s merely tolerated and others he’s adored. Like teaching, for example. He’s been a schoolteacher five or six times and it  _ never  _ gets old.

He’s had...well, sort of relationships. Nothing  _ very  _ long-term, because it’s one thing to disappear on your friends after ten or fifteen years, but quite another to just fade out of a  _ marriage  _ or the like. So he’s had dates and summer romances and even a couple of Grindr one-offs because what the hell, yeah? Besides, Merlin has come to believe over the years that true love really does come once in a lifetime—at least for him, it does. No matter how long that lifetime may be. On a probably-not-unrelated note, both of the blokes from Grindr were rather athletic blondes.

Anyway, Merlin’s never been horribly tempted to settle down with anybody because in the back of his mind, he knows that Arthur is coming back someday. And when that day comes, Merlin will have no choice but to drop whomever he’s shacked up with, regardless of how Arthur feels toward him. So he doesn’t allow himself to get too involved because it wouldn’t be fair to that person. Merlin has accepted this about himself a long time ago: at his core, his heart and his magic belong to Arthur, and that’s that.

This year though...Merlin’s decided to spend a bit more time in his cottage than usual. He’s not extending his Pity Party exactly, it’s just that he’s been thinking a little extra time to himself might be nice, and he can always go back into the city whenever he gets too bored. So he drives up with a trunk full of clothes and snack foods (there’s no corner shop near the cottage like there is by his flat), parks outside, and levitates his trunk through the front door and into the bedroom. That’s the other advantage of the cottage: no one around to see him  _ magic the shit _ out of everything he does.

His London flat faces the street. He has neighbours above, below, and to each side. It’s just too risky to use magic in the city unless he’s tucked into his bedroom at night, and even then he’s got to be really quiet about it. 

In the cottage, however...the sofa, the telly, the bedroom—all dust-free after a few words. The garden is weeded in seconds. Mandatory maintenance done, Merlin heats up a package of Hot Pockets, settles onto the sofa with a beer and flips on the telly.  _ A Room With a View  _ is on, no adverts.  _ Yes. _

He hasn’t decided exactly which days he will hold the Pity Party this year, but he thinks he’ll head out to the pub a couple miles off this evening for fish and chips, so he’s definitely not getting started on the cry-a-thon tonight. The pub has Trivia Night on Thursday evenings, as long as there’s no footie game going on, and Merlin has never failed to win pub trivia. The thing is...they’re mostly history questions. And he’s lived  _ all of it _ .

A few regulars groan when Merlin walks in because they were witnesses to last year’s  _ trivia massacre. _

“This lad again,” says the bartender, setting down his glasses. “What’ll it be?”

“Think we’ll start with some scotch. You remember me?” Merlin replies, smiling and pulling up a seat.

The bartender points to a board in the back of the pub upon which is written in chalk markers “The Rising Sun Pub Trivia Hi Score,” and underneath that… “Martin Emerson.”

Martin Emerson is Merlin’s flavour-of-the-moment pseudonym. He picks another name every time he restarts his life, but he’s reused Martin Emerson a few times over the last couple centuries. Emerson was the first surname he’d adopted when the whole surname thing caught on in a big way and suddenly  _ everyone had to have one,  _ and he likes it. It’s common enough, harkens back to the whole Emrys thing...and Martin is the closest he can get to Merlin within the realm of unassuming English names. He used Marion once or twice a couple centuries back, but that one’s sort of been claimed by girls as of late, and he called himself Michael in the nineteen eighties.

Anyhow, he’s pleased to see that he still holds the record. He intends to keep it that way.

“You’re just in time,” says the man standing up at the front, same as last time. He holds a stack of flashcards in one hand. “Alright, first question…”

“Tennyson,” Merlin announces with confidence some hours later, then slams his empty glass on the countertop, triumphant.

“Well,” says the bartender, “I suppose we’ll have to keep your name up there, lad.”

“I beat my own record,” Merlin tells him. “Don’t you think you ought to rewrite it?”

“Knock yourself out.” He tosses Merlin the chalk marker.

Merlin thinks his victory would be even sweeter if he’d allowed himself to get truly rat-arsed and then swept them just as easily, but he’s his own lift and  _ unfortunately  _ the idea of leaving the Mini Cooper at the pub and crawling home is not appealing. So he bids the rest of the pub goodnight with the intention of continuing the celebration back at the cottage by himself, in the sense that he is going to drink an entire bottle of wine and probably pass out whilst bingeing  _ Supernatural _ .

However.

As he turns onto the dirt road leading up to his cottage _which is normally absolutely deserted because this is the country and the bloody middle of the night_ , he comes within what feels like millimetres of driving right into somebody in the middle of the path. Merlin’s first instinct is to swerve to avoid the somebody, and he both turns the steering wheel and slams on the brake—not quite quick enough for a smooth getaway. The Mini Cooper collides with a tree and it dutifully deploys the airbag, knocking Merlin’s head back into the seat.

_ Ow. _ Ow ow ow.

He’s not hurt, not seriously anyway—he’s certain of that. Maybe a bit bruised and...shit. His  _ car. _ Merlin winces as he struggles out from under the airbag, opening the door and stumbling out of the car onto his knees.

He does not have to look far for the tosser who caused him to ruin his bonnet (at the very least.) The first thing he sees is a pair of wet, human feet, which is surprising enough because although it had  _ looked  _ like a person for the fraction of a second he was able to see before he went and drove his car into a tree, he’d been fairly certain his eyes were playing tricks on him since the deer in this part of the country aren’t nearly as cautious as they ought to be and he can’t even begin to imagine what a person would be doing out here right now.

Merlin rubs the back of his head, eyes trailing upward as he squints in the semi-darkness. The person to which the feet are attached is naked, and judging by the shadow flopping about between their...quite muscular thighs, they’re a man, but the silhouette is backlit from the headlights on the Mini Cooper and he’s maybe hit his head harder than he thought because it almost looks like…

“Merlin?”

And Merlin feels as though his heart is exploding in his chest because that voice and  _ his real name  _ and as he looks up...the golden hair reflected in the light from the car.

Arthur Pendragon is standing, completely starkers, in the middle of the road leading up to Lake Avalon.


	3. Be Our Guest

Merlin wants to say something—he tries for  _ Arthur— _ but none of the muscles in his throat or his diaphragm or even his tongue seem to be working, so he settles for what he hopes is an  _ attractive  _ gormless, gaping silence. Then:

“What are you  _ doing _ out here?” Arthur asks.

That snaps him out of it.

“What am I… What am  _ I _ doing out here?” Merlin replies. “I was...I was going home and then…”

“Where are we?” Arthur is now looking around. Merlin still can’t really make out his face.

“You’re...here, hold on a moment.” Merlin manages to stand up (though his knees wobble dangerously—he ignores them) and gropes around in his cluttered backseat for a torch that he knows  _ has to be in here somewhere... _

His fingers close around the torch, but as is the rule with torches: if you manage to find one, you can be certain the batteries inside are dead.

Well, it’s not as though Arthur doesn’t already know about his magic. He uses a spell to get the torch working again and shines it at Arthur.

He hadn’t really expected his first look at Arthur’s face in over a thousand years to be accompanied by a grimace and “augh what is that thing, get it out of my eyes,” but then again, he also didn’t expect to have nearly run him over. So far, Merlin feels, this is going as well as can be expected based on their past history. Splendid. Just like old times.

“ _ Mer _ lin,” Arthur says sternly, in the voice Merlin has been hearing in his dreams for  _ literally hundreds of years oh my God,  _ “ _ where _ are we?”

“We’re...by Lake Avalon,” Merlin says, trying to pull himself together enough to answer the bloody question. “I’ve got a cottage down the road...here, I can’t do this with you like—like you...put this on.”

Merlin pulls his jumper over his head and throws it at Arthur, who catches it because apparently being dead for eleven hundred years has done nothing to dull his battle reflexes. He glares at the jumper as though it has personally offended him.

A plan. That’s what Merlin needs. He’s got to formulate a plan. First step: get them home.

He walks around to assess the damage on his car and  _ thank God  _ it’s just dented the bonnet a bit. Merlin’s got plenty of magic but he knows nothing about auto mechanics and he had  _ not _ been looking forward to trying to figure out how to fix his car on his own. He manages to get the airbag back into its compartment with magic though—that much he’s confident doing himself—and sits back down in the driver’s seat.

“Get in,” he tells Arthur, who is still standing there  _ naked  _ and holding Merlin’s jumper out in front of him. Arthur doesn’t respond.

“Get in the car,” Merlin repeats. He opens the passenger side door and beckons to Arthur, who approaches the vehicle with extreme trepidation. Merlin can already tell that Arthur’s more unhappy to be swordless than clothes-less; his right hand has moved automatically to his hip and found no sword belt.

“What is this...thing?” he asks, gesturing to the car.

“It’s my car,” Merlin says. “I’ll explain later; I’m taking you to my house. Trust me.”

_ That  _ seems to get through to him—the “trust me” bit. Arthur steps gingerly into the car and sits his wet, naked arse on Merlin’s leather seat.

“Pull the door closed,” Merlin tells him. “And…”

_ Nevermind.  _ He reaches across Arthur, pulls the door shut, then plucks his jumper out of Arthur’s hands and drops it into his lap, so as to cover his bits at the very least, before reaching around and fastening Arthur’s seat belt. He sighs before starting the engine and turning back onto the road.

“It’s only a few minutes from here,” Merlin tells him. “Just...just sit for a moment.”

“I presume that...because you said ‘my house,’” Arthur says quietly, “you no longer live in the palace.”

“No,” Merlin admits. “Arthur, it’s...it’s been quite some time. There’s going to be a bit…” Merlin sighs again. He honestly doesn’t know where to begin.  _ Is _ there even a good place to begin?

“There’s going to be a lot of adjustment. But I’m here, and you’re here, and we’ll...we’ll…”

And Merlin suddenly has to clear his throat and blink rapidly to keep from bursting into tears, his hands tight on the steering wheel because  _ Arthur is here, Arthur is sitting in his passenger seat and holy shit this is what he’s been waiting for for over a thousand years and he’s too ready and not ready enough and— _

Just then, the cottage comes into view and Merlin takes a deep breath because there are so many things in this cottage that he’s going to have to explain and deep down, all he wants to do is cling to Arthur and inhale the long-forgotten scent of his hair and his armour…

His armour. Arthur doesn’t have any armour, apparently. So much for Merlin’s fantasy of holeing up in the bathroom to sniff his chainmail. Oh well.

He parks the car outside the cottage and walks around to the passenger side to let Arthur out. Arthur tries to stand, looks alarmed when he finds himself tethered to the seat, and Merlin has to, God help him, once again reach over his naked body to unbuckle the seat belt.

Arthur gets out of the car and lets the jumper fall out onto the driveway, where Merlin stoops to pick it up because he is  _ always and forever  _ cleaning up after Arthur, why should that have changed? But he obediently follows Merlin up the steps and through the front door.

Merlin gets his first proper look at Arthur under the entryway light once they’re inside. He’s not just  _ wet,  _ he’s also  _ filthy— _ covered in what looks like pond scum and mud and—

“This place is hideous,” Arthur announces.

Merlin pulls a face. “You’re one to talk, have you looked at yourself?”

Arthur glances down and wipes absently at the muck, seemingly unconcerned about being naked in front of Merlin, which serves to remind Merlin that  _ of course, why would he be?  _ Arthur was naked around Merlin all the damn time back in Camelot. He’d come back from a hunt, or a battle or a joust and Merlin would strip him out of his clothes and—

“Draw me a bath,” Arthur commands. And there it is. The one thing about Arthur Merlin  _ never _ missed—the bloody incessant demands. Arthur, greatest king that ever was, so legendary he’s remembered eleven hundred years in the future, was and remains a  _ great big prat. _

All things considered, however, Merlin feels that he might as well comply because Arthur certainly doesn’t know how to use the taps.

“Follow me,” Merlin instructs, leading Arthur into the bathroom. He can almost hear the questions pinging off the walls of Arthur’s thick skull— _ what’s that, what’s that, why is it light at night in here with no fire, what’s that— _ but Arthur remains quiet while Merlin turns on the taps and marvels at himself for somehow remembering, all these years later, precisely what Arthur’s prefered water temperature is…

When he stands back from the basin, Arthur is staring at the running water with deep apprehension.

“Is this more of your sorcery?” Arthur accuses.

Merlin rolls his eyes. “Not sorcery. Just plumbing. Get in.”

“Plumbing?”

“It’s...clean water carried through pipes for baths and toilets and—look, I’ll explain in a bit. You’re smelling up the whole room—it's like concentrated mildew, please just—” Merlin gestures helplessly toward the tub.

Arthur climbs into the tub and sinks down into the water, which instantly turns a murky brown.

“Okay, no,” Merlin says. “That’s not going to work, you need—”

He pulls the plug on the drain and turns on the showerhead, which he immediately realises was a mistake because the force of it sprays Arthur right in the face. He coughs and sputters and struggles to his feet.

“What the—Merlin, you useless—can’t even—Wash me off this instant.”

Merlin hesitates for only a split second before grabbing a fresh bar of soap and a flannel from beside the sink and chucking them at Arthur.

“Be my guest,” he says with a smile, before exiting the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.

It’s immediately easier to think in the hallway. He’s out of the steam, Arthur isn’t standing in front of him totally nude and barking orders...yes, Merlin thinks, telling Arthur to wash himself was the right choice for a number of reasons: one, he’s being a git, likely because he’s feeling so deeply rattled that he’s reverted to his old overbearing tendencies in an effort to wrest some semblance of control over the situation for himself. It’s understandable, given the circumstances, but Merlin is disinclined to give in and humour him for the second reason, which is even more important than the first: Merlin is no longer Arthur’s manservant.

In fact, the tables have very much turned in regards to their balance of power because Arthur is a man entirely out of his element—homeless, a stranger in this world, clueless as to what has come to pass over the centuries...and Merlin is as adapted as a person can be—employed, decently popular, living comfortably. Arthur  _ needs _ him, now more than ever. Merlin has no intention of taking advantage of that in any way—he meant what he said about being born to serve Arthur—but he decided long ago that when Arthur returned, there would be no more  _ literal manservant  _ nonsense.

Arthur is his king, his once and future king, but now Merlin realises that “once and future” means a lot less to someone who truly has all the time in the world. And that nowhere in the prophecy was Merlin referred to as the “once and future manservant.” Merlin considers them to be on equal footing. So Arthur can wash his own armpits like anyone else.

Also—and this is the _least important_ reason (Merlin tells himself, sternly)—he can’t trust his body not to react if he’s put in a position where he has to be on his knees at Arthur’s feet, rubbing his arse. It was one thing back in Camelot where the idea of _acting_ on his attraction to Arthur was inconceivable, but now that there’s a chance it could actually be a perfectly viable option… No. He’s got enough to explain to Arthur at this point without having to get into _that_ whole thing. He’s not naive enough to believe that it’s something they’ll be able to ignore _forever,_ but for the time being he thinks it best to put that particular issue on the back burner.

Merlin heads into his bedroom to pick out something for Arthur to wear once he finishes up in the shower. He’s got...well, it’s not like he’s got anything  _ fancy  _ to attend out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. He  _ was _ planning on spending most of his time here alone on the sofa, so he’s come prepared for that with an arsenal of only his softest and most comfortable tracksuit bottoms and tees. He grabs a  _ Team Neville  _ shirt that he’s worn almost to death (he thinks Arthur will come to appreciate the whole Sword of Gryffindor thing in time) and some old plaid pyjama bottoms, then debates internally for a moment about whether or not to let Arthur go without pants, decides that he’s not ready to have the whole boxers versus Y-fronts discussion tonight, and lays both the bottoms and the tee next to one another on the bed before wandering into the kitchen.

He looks at the bottle of wine on the counter for a long moment before bringing it out to the coffee table along with a glass. He’s not sure if getting Arthur pissed will help with what he’s going to have to tell him, but he figures he might as well give him the option. He’s staring into the open cupboard at his...frankly, impressive selection of snacks when he hears the bathroom door open.

“Merlin?” Arthur calls, stepping out into the hallway whist scrubbing a towel over his hair.

“You didn’t—you have to turn off the water when you’re done,” Merlin says, striding down the hall and past Arthur into the bathroom, which is appallingly  _ sopping wet _ (evidently Arthur decided that the shower curtain served no purpose and thus did not use it) and shuts off the tap before magicking the room dry and turning to Arthur.

“I’ve got clothes for you in here,” Merlin says, gesturing toward the bedroom. Arthur walks in and stands expectantly at the foot and Merlin realises that he’s waiting for Merlin to dress him, the _ clotpole _ .

“Ugh,” Merlin groans, but maybe that’s a bit unfair because Arthur’s never seen clothing quite like this so…

Merlin pulls the shirt over Arthur’s head and shoves his hands through the armholes.

“Remember how I’m doing this, because it’s the last time I’m dressing you,” Merlin tells him.

Arthur scoffs. “Insolent, as always. Glad to see  _ one  _ thing hasn’t changed.”

“You have  _ no _ idea,” Merlin mutters, unfastening the drawstring on the bottoms with difficulty. He tied them years ago when he got them and has never bothered to unlace them, but he’s got to now because Arthur’s a lot broader about the waist than he is and it takes several tries and a lot of swearing before the knot comes loose. Arthur steps into them at Merlin’s instruction and he hands the mangled ends of the drawstring to Arthur for him to knot, which he does without complaint. Already getting the hang of it, then.

Merlin stands back to take in the strange, incongruous sight of Arthur Pendragon in a  _ Harry Potter _ shirt and plaid pyjama bottoms. He fills out the shirt a lot better than Merlin does—the worn fabric stretching lightly over his pectorals and biceps. He’d be  _ eaten alive  _ at a club if he paired the shirt with some tight jeans.

Merlin offers him a hasty tour of the cottage, mostly to divert his own attention, during which Arthur regards every object with deepest suspicion.

“Where’s the cook?” Arthur demands while standing in the middle of the kitchen. “I’m starving.”

Merlin gestures to the room at large. “Does this look like the banquet hall at Camelot to you? People cook for themselves now, though I’m not much of a chef—“

“Why doesn’t  _ that _ surprise me?”

“—but I’ve got crisps if you’d like some, or I could heat up a frozen pizza?”

Arthur looks at him like he’s speaking a different language and Merlin belatedly realises that “crisps” and “pizza” mean nothing to him.

“Here,” he says, grabbing Arthur’s hand and dragging him toward the sitting room. “I wish we were back in my flat, you can get take away pretty much any time of day there—”

“What’s a flat?” Arthur asks, sitting down on the sofa and picking up the bottle of wine, examining the label.

“It’s my—it’s in the city,” Merlin says. “I usually live there, I just have this cottage for...for…”

“Merlin,” Arthur says.

“...sometimes I like to come up here to—”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, more insistently. Merlin turns to face him.

Arthur takes a deep breath. “How long have I been...out? Unconscious? I remember I was dying but you must’ve done something to save me—with your  _ magic _ that you’ve been hiding from me and we still need to talk about—because I’m clearly here now and it feels as though I just woke in the morning after a night’s sleep. But this...how long has it been?”

Merlin freezes.

“Merlin? How long has it been?” Arthur clips the end of every syllable in obvious exasperation.

“Eleven hundred years,” Merlin breathes out.

Arthur stares at him for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“Funny,” he chuckles, “but I’m not  _ daft.  _ You’re still here, so it can't have been—”

“It’s been one thousand one hundred years,” Merlin says, both hoping and fearing that his tone is serious enough to remove any lingering skepticism that he could be joking. He inhales deeply and opens the freezer.

“Alright then,” Arthur says, nodding, still obviously disbelieving. “If, as you say, it’s been one thousand one hundred years, how are you—”

“Magic,” Merlin says. He intends to leave it at that, but Arthur appears to be looking for a more in-depth analysis because he glares expectantly at Merlin and doesn’t say anything else.

“I’m immortal, at least I am so far,” Merlin says, unwrapping the cellophane around the pizza and turning up the oven. There’s so much to say that Merlin doesn’t know where to start—he doesn’t even  _ want  _ to start. “I’ve seen...God, so much. And no, I didn’t save you. You died. You died, and I sent your body into Lake Avalon, and there was a prophecy...I knew you’d come back someday. And that I’d be here when you did.”

Arthur deserves better than the jumble of truncated half-thoughts and perfunctory explanations, he  _ needs  _ to know more, but Merlin suddenly wishes they could just fast-forward through it. He doesn’t want to talk, he just wants to feel the warmth of Arthur’s face and the pulse in his neck to prove to himself that he’s really here because the last time he touched Arthur, his skin was cold and his heart was still.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Arthur says, and Merlin almost drops the pizza because  _ that was an honest-to-God compliment,  _ unprovoked by a fatal wound or imminent mortal peril or anything.

“So am I,” Merlin replies, and  _ God, _ how he means it.

“Even if I am annoyed with you.” Of course he is. Merlin tries not to roll his eyes.

“But Camelot…” Arthur starts again.

Fuck. Time to rip off the plaster.

“No more,” Merlin says. “It’s a really long story, centuries and centuries of...anyway—”

“And you...you’re the only one who is immortal?” Arthur says slowly.

Merlin winces, facing the hob, because he knows Arthur is talking about Gwen. He supposes he ought to have considered the fact that he was always going to have to be the one to break it to Arthur, but is there a way that’s more compassionate than any other to tell someone that their wife is so long dead that even her bones are nothing but dust?  _ Come on, Merlin. Rip off the plaster. _

“Yes,” Merlin confirms.

“Everyone else,” Arthur murmurs. “All my knights...Guinevere.”

“Gwen was…” Merlin sighs. “She ruled Camelot after you were gone.”

“The people were fortunate, then,” Arthur says quietly. Merlin glances at him. He’s staring down at his bare feet and nodding to himself, apparently trying to process. Merlin’s under no illusions about how long it might take for him to come to terms with what’s happened. It could be months. Years. Never.

“Very fortunate,” Merlin says. “She was even better than you.”

Arthur snaps his head up, plainly affronted but not truly hurt—a look so familiar and loved that Merlin can’t help but be cheered by it. Merlin pretends to consider.

“I mean...I’m just saying, if it was a choice between having  _ you _ return, or her…”

Arthur throws a pillow at Merlin and it hits him square in the face.

“You know, I think I liked you more when you were dying,” Merlin says, chucking the pillow back to him. “You said such lovely things, I almost felt like—”

“I was obviously delirious from blood loss,” Arthur interrupts. “You can disregard everything I said.”

“I’ll have you know I have cherished those words every day of my life,” Merlin says, which is absolutely the truth but he tries to play it off as though it isn’t. “You  _ thanked _ me. For my years of selfless sorcery on your behalf. You even—”

“Psh,” Arthur huffs. “Don’t expect it to happen again.”

It comes out so fondly that Merlin knows he’s doing what he always does—where he says something awful but only because he understands that Merlin knows he means quite the opposite and it comes through in those smiles and looks and all of a sudden Merlin’s eyes are watery again because  _ nothing has changed, not really, they’re still them… _

He stares at the ceiling to try and collect himself. There’s no doubt that he’s going to have to have a good cry about this at some point in the very near future because he’s basically been hit by almost every conceivable emotion at once, but he was hoping to have it  _ after  _ Arthur goes to bed.

Speaking of sleeping, this is a one-bedroom cottage and in the entire eighty or so years he’s had it, he’s never once considered where Arthur was going to sleep if/when he came out of the lake. Merlin’s not even sure  _ how _ he knew Arthur was going to spring back into existence from the lake, but he always sort of assumed that’s the way it would go. In hindsight, Merlin wishes he’d put a bit more thought into planning, but he figures that if the dragon had perhaps given him  _ any idea at all  _ of  _ when exactly  _ he might expect to have Arthur back, he could’ve been more prepared. So he feels that, in all fairness, he ought to be excused. This is the dragon’s fault. Again.

But back to sleeping arrangements. He could theoretically form a second bedroom for Arthur with magic, but he’s not sure he’d be able to do it without bollocksing up the wiring and the  _ last  _ thing he wants is to have to call an electrician out here before he’s even figured out what he’s going to  _ do _ with Arthur.

Besides, Merlin is tired. Exhausted, actually. The oven beeps and Merlin removes the pizza, placing it on the coffee table in front of Arthur, who immediately reaches for a slice and retracts his hand upon touching it—glaring at Merlin as though Merlin has burnt him on purpose.

“You have to wait for it to cool a bit,” Merlin says. “Or—”

He magicks the pizza to a bearable temperature. Arthur points an accusing finger at him, while using the other hand to grab a slice.

“That. That right there is what we need to talk about. How long have you had magic? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? How many times have you used it without my knowledge?”

Oh God, really? Merlin had hoped Arthur would’ve had enough time in the...ether or heaven or wherever the hell he was for the last millennium to come to terms with Merlin’s magic so they could just move on right away, but  _ apparently  _ Arthur hasn’t been anywhere in particular and he’d been too weak to put up as much of a fuss as he’d wanted to when Merlin had first revealed it to him. At least weak enough not to remember that they  _ already had this discussion. _ It’s not one Merlin’s keen to repeat—the pain of recalling the state of Arthur during the first go-round is somehow keener with Arthur sitting right in front of him. So naturally, because Merlin’s emotional maturity is instantly reduced to that of a kindergartener when he’s in Arthur’s presence, he expresses his feelings by fixing Arthur with a long-suffering stare before rolling his eyes.

“Since I was born, because you or your father would’ve had me killed, more times than you can even imagine. Are we done?”

“We are  _ not _ —oh God, this...what is in this?” Arthur cries, taking a bite of pizza and chewing. His expression could be either revulsion or surprised satisfaction—it’s impossible to tell.

“Pizza dough is just bread,” Merlin says. “It’s got tomato sauce and cheese—it’s only a cheese pizza, but I forgot to warn you how much more flavourful food is now than it was back then. Do you like it?”

Arthur nods slowly, brow furrowed as he chews. 

“Is anyone going to open this wine?” he says, by which he means  _ Merlin, open this wine _ . Merlin pops off the cork with a spell just to be contrary about it, then he claps his hands together and points at Arthur.

“Ooh, I can’t wait for you to try a beefburger,” Merlin tells Arthur. “Loads of stuff you like, all in one package. Oh, and French pastries—you’re going to love croissants—no wait! Cronuts! I’m going to get you a cronut and then you will worship me for the rest of my days. Guaranteed.”

Arthur swallows his bite of pizza and then takes another. “As odd as ever, I see,” he comments through a mouthful.

Death appears to be the greatest appetite stimulant of all time—Arthur polishes off the entire pizza by himself in thirty minutes (as well as half the bottle of wine), occasionally asking Merlin questions as he watches Arthur eat and leans up against the kitchen counter, trying to reconcile the strangeness of the situation with how normal it feels to stand there while Arthur finishes his dinner and  _ crap, he’s going back into manservant mode without even meaning to, damn it. _

Merlin strides purposely across the kitchen and plops himself next to Arthur on the sofa in the sitting room because they are equals now and he wants Arthur to get accustomed to it. He pours himself a glass of wine.

“So,” he tells Arthur, “it’s getting late and—”

“I’m not tired,” Arthur interrupts. “But I saw where the bedroom is, just turn down the bed for me and I’ll be along when I’m ready. It’s quite a small bed, not what I’m used to, but I suppose it’ll have to do.”

Merlin turns to face him with the best dispassionate stare he can manage while taking a long sip of his wine.

“That’s  _ my  _ bed, actually,” he informs Arthur. “You’re just going to have to kip on the sofa for now until we figure out something to do with you.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” Arthur says, taking a gulp of wine and staring right back at him, “that you  _ knew _ I was coming back, and yet you haven’t even prepared a place for me to sleep?”

Merlin takes a deep breath.

“I know this is probably really difficult for you to comprehend, but since you’ve been away, scientists have discovered that the world, in fact, revolves around the sun, not you. People continued to come and go after you died, so it’s not like I’ve been sitting here on the shore waiting for you this whole time.”

Merlin conveniently doesn’t mention the entire century he spent doing just that, but it’s the principle of the matter that counts here.

Arthur looks as though Merlin just slapped him in the face and for a wild moment, Merlin is certain he’s about to get something thrown at him. Instead Arthur puts down his wineglass and squints at Merlin as though he’s suddenly skeptical that Merlin is really Merlin after all.

“You know,” Arthur says, “you’re being even more impertinent than usual today.” As if today isn’t much different than any other day—as if the last day Merlin was impertinent to him wasn’t before the invention of the printing press.

“That could be because I’m not your manservant anymore,” Merlin replies. He raises his own glass to Arthur and takes a long sip. “Cheers to my new flatmate _.” _

“What—” Arthur sputters. “Flatmate?”

“People don’t have manservants now,” Merlin says. “Unless they’re exceedingly wealthy, which, by the way, you no longer are, and even if you  _ did _ have enough money to buy yourself a manservant again, it wouldn’t be me.”

“So you’re quitting?” Arthur demands.

“Hmm… I suppose I am, essentially. Yes,” says Merlin, absolutely  _ relishing  _ in this conversation. “But don’t worry, I’m still going to help you out because I’m still your best friend and because it’s really pathetic that you’re a grown man in the twenty first century who’s never seen  _ Star Wars.” _

“So you’re not quitting,” Arthur clarifies.  _ This gorgeous idiot _ , Merlin thinks.  _ How I’ve missed him. _

“Well you’ve kind of got to stick with me,” Merlin says. “You don’t have a birth certificate, you can’t drive, hell you don’t even have clothes...but, and I hate to be the one who tells you this,” (Merlin savours the taste of the words in his mouth for a moment before he says them) “you’re going to have to fold your own laundry. Do your own washing up. And that bed in there? That’s mine. Goodnight, Arthur.”

And with that, Merlin places his empty glass on the coffee table, pats Arthur on the head in the most condescending way possible, and walks away to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

“Good to have you back,” he calls to Arthur before closing the bathroom door.


	4. Fixer-Upper

Merlin awakes the next morning with a knot in his stomach because there are two possibilities he could be facing upon leaving his bedroom:

  1. Arthur is asleep in his sitting room.
  2. Merlin got absolutely sloshed beyond belief after pub trivia and had an elaborate Arthur Returns™ fantasy (he tries to avoid those at all costs because that way madness lies) and he’s going to go into the sitting room and find nothing but several empty bottles of wine and his heart in tatters



Merlin stares at his ceiling and takes a deep breath, willing the tears prickling in the corners of his eyes to  _ go away _ . He’s going to be forced to get up soon because he desperately needs to pee and when he walks down the hall to the toilet, he’ll get a glimpse of the sofa and…

Merlin stays in bed as long as he reasonably can, and when he is left with no other choice, he carefully tiptoes out of his bedroom and forces himself to peer into the sitting room...only to see Arthur, facedown on the sofa and fast asleep. Beyond him, the coffee table is littered with what appears to be the remains of his entire snack cupboard—empty crisps bags and Pop Tarts boxes and sweets wrappers...

Breathing a shaky sigh, Merlin locks the door in the bathroom and begins to relieve himself. Unfortunately, the tears he’s been intermittently holding back since last night choose that exact moment to become non-negotiable and  _ wonderful,  _ now he’s crying while pissing. How romantic.  _ At least this isn’t a public toilet, _ he thinks, willing his body to finish up so he can have his cry without worrying about doing both at the same time.

After washing off, he closes the lid on the toilet and sits down, covering his face with his hands and trying not to actually  _ sob.  _ Arthur will probably wake soon and demand breakfast and...what else will he ask for? Possibly a horse. Probably a sword.

He laughs through his tears at the thought of Arthur striding out of his cottage and looking round for the stables, insisting on being taken to the nearest blacksmith. He’d sometimes forgotten how much  _ work  _ it was having Arthur around, how exhausting he could be. Merlin usually tends to focus on the more idyllic memories—shoving Arthur and getting shoved back after a bit of ribbing, listening to Arthur complain about nobles or land disputes whilst Merlin was undressing him...but now Arthur is back. All of him. The good bits, and the difficult ones too.

Merlin sighs and stands, scrubbing his hands over his face before splashing some water on his puffy eyes. He’s thinking about going back to bed for a bit, but when he exits the bathroom, it’s to find Arthur sitting upright and staring right at him over the back of the sofa. Well shit. What if Arthur heard him crying and is about to launch into some tirade about what a  _ girl _ he is or some other such nonsense? Merlin mentally prepares the beginnings of a lecture on toxic masculinity, but Arthur either doesn’t notice or tactfully ignores his blotchy face in favour of:

“Breakfast?”

Arthur complains loudly of the bland, watery pasteurised milk, but can’t seem to find a single negative thing to say about Frosties, and the upshot of the whole thing is that he eats the entire box by himself and Merlin realises that he’s going to need to pop down to the market in town quite a lot sooner than he anticipated.

“Another,” Arthur demands, gesturing to the empty Frosties box.

Merlin shakes his head. “I’m afraid there isn’t any more; you ate all of it.”

Arthur makes a disgruntled sort of noise, but he says nothing and his eyes flick to the cabinet where Merlin had kept his biscuits and crisps and cereal and all manner of other snacks, but which is now bare.

“Arthur,” Merlin says thoughtfully, nibbling on the cheese toast he’s made for himself, “I could just be forgetting here but I don’t recall your appetite being quite this voracious...before.”

He goes with “before” because he’s not sure what else to say. “Back when you were alive the first time?” Or perhaps, “Back in Camelot?” He suspects he may need to tiptoe around the subject of Camelot for some time yet—for as well as he knows Arthur, it’s impossible to tell how he’s really taking this, which Merlin thinks is understandable. The situation is without precedent.

“You don’t say,” Arthur replies, scraping the last bits of cereal from the bottom of the bowl with his spoon and looking into the box as if to ensure it really is as empty as it feels. “I think it’s as though everything is sort of, I don’t know, bottled up? I went to use your… not-chamberpot, or whatever it’s called last night after you retired, and I swear I was in there for an hour. I feel as though I could eat an entire feast by myself. I shudder to think what it’s going to look like when I—”

Merlin cocks an eyebrow. Arthur cuts off abruptly and returns to eat the last bite of his cereal.

“So,” Arthur says, very obviously changing subjects on purpose, “if we’re not in Camelot, then where are we? Whose lands are these?”

“The UK,” Merlin answers, mentally composing a list of things he should pick up—it’s difficult to estimate how long Arthur is going to be eating like this. God, he hopes it’s not eleven hundred years. Merlin’s savings are none too shabby, but not nearly enough to feed Arthur a hundred pounds worth of food every day for the rest of eternity. It takes him a moment to realise that Arthur is staring expectantly at him.

“Sorry, I mean, the United Kingdom,” he corrects himself.

“United Kingdom,” Arthur repeats, nodding appreciatively. “I like the sound of that.”

“Trust me, it’s a misnomer,” Merlin assures him. “The UK is England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland…” He counts off on his fingers as he recites.

“What of Mercia?” Arthur asks. Oh boy.

“Long gone,” Merlin tells him. “We’re near Cornwall right now.”

“Cornwall.” Arthur nods again.

“In England,” Merlin clarifies. “So we’re in England, in Great Britain, in the UK, which is in Europe. I usually live in London though, that’s east of here and a bit north.”

Arthur looks utterly lost, but the bemused expression transforms quickly into annoyance.

“Well Merlin,” he snaps, “when you deign to begin talking sense again, I think you’d better tell me what’s happened since I died.”

Merlin has to chuckle—Arthur says it like it’s  _ simple _ —as though he’s missed a couple of episodes of  _ Buffy _ and needs a quick recap to catch him up. And it’s not as though Merlin knows  _ everything  _ that’s happened throughout all of history everywhere, or can recall it in perfect clarity and detail in chronological order, or from any point of view other than his own…

That’s when the brilliant solution hits him.

“Wait here,” he tells Arthur, then sprints into the bedroom to grab his bag.

“What on God’s good earth is  _ that?” _ Arthur asks as Merlin sets his laptop on the table in front of Arthur and pulls up the browser.

“Wikipedia.org,” Merlin announces proudly whilst typing, “Monarchy of the United Kingdom. That’s going to be good for all the recent stuff. Off you go.” He teaches Arthur the basics on how to navigate and work a mouse, which Arthur touches apprehensively.

“Are you certain that  _ none  _ of this is sorcery?” Arthur asks for what feels like the millionth time. He’s asked that about the refrigerator, the toilet, the telly (which Merlin hasn’t even turned on yet), as well as Merlin’s toothbrush and a  _ Sherlock _ poster Merlin has up on the wall in the bedroom.

“I’m certain. As far as I know, I’m the only sorcerer in the world,” he admits. “They stopped being born after you died. Even amongst the druids...I was the only one left within a hundred years. Haven’t spotted any magical creatures either recently—no trolls is a plus, but I do miss dragons. And my magic isn’t quite what it used to be...”

Arthur searches his face as he nods slowly.

“Anyway,” Merlin tells him as he turns back to the screen, “I’ll leave you here to read, then after lunch we can head into town for a bit and buy you some clothes.”

“Can’t the tailor just come to call?” Arthur asks without looking up from the computer.

“Not how it works anymore,” Merlin says. “Clothes come off the peg. There’s a—”

“And you couldn’t have kept any of my clothing from Camelot?”

“You’re damn right I couldn’t,” Merlin replies, knitting his brows together. “Where would I have put them, Arthur? I didn’t stay in Camelot forever. I had to travel light at times, and what was I going to say to Gwen anyway? ‘Sorry, can I just make off with a couple of your dead husband’s shirts?’”

Oops. Merlin winces—that was probably a bit of a low blow. The fact is that Merlin would’ve given _ anything _ to keep a few of Arthur’s personal effects—he just hadn’t felt as though he had a right to them. His insides squirm with guilt over the ring he has tucked into the drawer at his bedside table, but he pushes the thought out of his mind.

Arthur finally looks up from the screen. “No, I suppose you couldn’t have,” he says softly, catching Merlin’s eye and maintaining his gaze.

Something uncomfortable bubbles in the pit of Merlin’s stomach. They used to look at each other like this all the time—half-challenge, half...something else. That unacknowledged  _ thing  _ that took Merlin so long to admit to himself, even longer to voice it.  _ Eye-fucking, _ he's heard it called before. At least that was it on Merlin’s end, to Arthur it was possibly something else entirely.

Either way, it’s making him feel kind of queasy so he squashes it down with, “Even if I had kept your vambraces and ceremonial robes, you’d be committed walking around like that today. What you need are jeans, pants, jumpers, socks, trainers…”

He’s aware that none of these words really mean anything to Arthur, who has already lost interest and is turning back toward the computer. Merlin settles in on the sofa with some headphones and Ed Sheeran, leaning back against the cushions and feigning dozing. He can’t quite keep himself from watching Arthur though, the morning sun filtering through the kitchen window and reflecting off of Arthur’s golden, sleep-tousled hair. His minute changes in expression as he reads, how his brow furrows or how he chews his lip or rests his chin in his hands. He looks so out-of-place and yet so at home in Merlin’s cottage, and it’s almost impossible to reconcile the two things.

They make it almost an hour before Arthur slams the laptop shut with an alarming noise that cuts through  _ Afire Love  _ and brings to mind the cost of MacBook repairs. Merlin flinches and takes one of the headphones out of his ears.

“Something wrong?” he asks Arthur.

“Yes, something’s wrong,” Arthur snaps. “I’m bored, and it feels as though I’m getting nowhere. This is going to take bloody forever.”

“Thought you were going to be able to learn eleven hundred years of history in an afternoon, did you?” Merlin says. “Imagine having lived it.”

“I can’t,” Arthur replies shortly. “I need to get out and do something before I go mad.”

“We could go into town now,” Merlin offers, sitting up and placing the headphones back into his pocket. “Maybe get lunch while we’re there, we could get Chinese take away—”

“I should like to go hunting,” Arthur announces.

Ugh, of all the things Merlin hasn’t missed...

“Afraid I haven’t got any horses,” Merlin tells him, trying to look apologetic about it and not smug.

“On foot then,” Arthur amends smoothly, standing and looking about with his hands on his hips. The effect is decidedly less kingly when they’re in a cottage instead of a castle and Arthur is still wearing Merlin’s pyjamas in lieu of armour. “Where are your crossbows?”

“Oh, the armoury is just around back,” Merlin says with an eyeroll, but Arthur just nods curtly and strides out through the kitchen door and Merlin has to run after him calling, “I was joking, you dollophead, there’s no—people don’t have armouries anymore!”

The end result of the ensuing argument is that Merlin essentially shoves Arthur into the car and they have a drive into town (Merlin finally convinces him it is simply too far to walk, despite the fact that he asked for the distance in days, not hours) during which Arthur sits sullenly in the passenger seat, picking awkwardly at the flip flops he’s been forced to wear since none of Merlin’s trainers fit him properly.

Arthur heads straight for the first mirror he sees when they enter H&M and bends at the waist with his arms out in front of him as though he expects someone (Merlin, probably) to come up and start fitting him for clothing.

“Nope,” Merlin says, hauling him towards the men’s section by the arm. “Here we go.”

“Those are unacceptable,” Arthur decrees as Merlin holds up a pair of trousers. “Entirely unsuited for my needs.”

“Why?” Merlin asks. “They look good to me and, ooh! Look, they’re on markdown—”

“I can’t fight in those,” Arthur says, folding his arms over his chest and clearly attempting to look as stubborn as possible. The position only serves to highlight the tone of his biceps, and Merlin has to quickly remind himself that ogling Arthur is a  _ perk  _ of this errand, not the _ point  _ of it.

“Good thing you won’t need to,” Merlin says brightly. “We haven’t had a tourney in ages.”

Arthur looks aghast, but does not uncross his arms.

“You’re trying them on,” Merlin tells him, flinging the trousers over Arthur’s shoulder before returning to peruse the racks.

The teenager on the sales floor allows them in the fitting room together without too much fuss, probably because Merlin’s amassed enormous stacks of of tee shirts and jeans and button-downs and trousers and jumpers and this is all undoubtedly going to cost more than what she makes in a fortnight. Or possibly because she’s occupied with openly gaping at Arthur, who is too consumed with his brooding to notice her attention.

Once inside, Merlin wrestles Arthur into a pair of dark wash jeans amid much flailing and loud protestations, but the effect is rather worth it. Merlin is forced to begrudgingly admit that Arthur really  _ does  _ look good in everything—the pile of clothes to put back on the shelves is nonexistent—and once they leave the store Merlin is much poorer than when they arrived and Arthur is  _ glowering, _ though he’s having a difficult time looking as intimidating as he’d probably like to because Merlin has insisted he carry all ten shopping bags.

His dark mood lifts at once when they stop at the bakery nearby, however, because Merlin purchases them a loaf of fresh bread and assorted pastries and then spends the rest of the drive home explaining to Arthur the concept of  _ hangry. _

“The bread is basically the same,” Arthur comments, cheerfully dropping crumbs all over his new henley and Merlin’s upholstery. “Good to see one thing hasn’t changed.”

Arthur chews in a contemplative sort of manner for a moment.

“And you.”

Arthur spends the bulk of his time over the course of the next few weeks trying to piece together the history of England via Wikipedia articles and disjointed questions he lobs at Merlin, who mostly passes the hours watching television programmes on his mobile (somehow the idea of actually turning on the telly is daunting—he’s not sure Arthur is ready for it.) His intentions of learning the basics of computer programming have fallen to the wayside in the enormity of Arthur’s return. Having Arthur in his face every few minutes asking things like “So are the members of One Direction involved in day-to-day governance, or are they merely figureheads?” has him discombobulated enough that he feels justified in taking comfort in re-watching the entirety of  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender. _

There is one especially odd incident that occurs in the morning four days after Arthur’s arrival. By that point, Merlin feels as though Arthur has got a pretty basic grasp of what goes on in the bathroom (flushing, showering, tooth brushing, using a safety razor) so he's really flummoxed when he pulls back the shower curtain to find the basin of the tub coated in some kind of gooey white substance, one of the ingredients of which appears to be toothpaste, at least judging by the overpowering scent of spearmint. And  _ yep, _ he finds the empty tube in the bin. 

“Arthur?” Merlin calls, and Arthur appears in the doorway a moment later. Merlin beckons him closer. 

“What happened to you when you were showering this morning?” he asks.

Arthur shrugs unconvincingly. “Nothing?”

“Erm...is there any particular reason you decided to squeeze out all the toothpaste into the tub and mix it with...God, what  _ is  _ this?”

“How should I know?” Arthur says, but his posture is defensive, and Merlin can tell right away that that's  _ not  _ the whole story.

“Because...you're the only other person who lives here?” he says slowly.

Arthur shrugs again, looking anywhere but at Merlin. 

“Was this some kind of misguided attempt at cleaning?” Merlin guesses. He's at a total loss for any other possible explanation. 

“Possibly,” Arthur huffs. “But I can see it's not appreciated so I certainly won't be doing it again.” He turns on his heel and storms out of the room. But Merlin can tell he's not nearly as irate as he's letting on, but even more than that—did he almost seem...embarrassed? Merlin leans in close to the stuff and reaches out to touch—

There's a clanging crash from the direction of the kitchen and a cry of “Merlin!” so Merlin clears the tub with a spell and reminds himself to question Arthur more thoroughly if it ever happens again.

Over the next few weeks, Merlin’s learns that his forfeiture of his former job is a more symbolic gesture than anything since he still does most of the work around the cottage because, in order of increasing difficulty, chores go as follows:

  1. Merlin does the chore by magic.
  2. Merlin does the chore by hand alone.
  3. Merlin explains every aspect of the chore to Arthur, shows him how to do it, then watches him fumble through and break every item involved in the completion of the chore. Merlin then repairs the broken objects with magic and does the chore himself in the end.



Merlin tries with all his might not to enjoy this too much: King Arthur, Commander of the Knights of the Round Table, Greatest King that Albion Has Ever Known, cannot operate a microwave without unintentionally starting a fire.

Nevertheless, their little holiday in the country (as Merlin has come to think of it) has to end sometime. Arthur’s eating normal, human-sized portions now, and Merlin has finished both  _ Avatar _ and  _ Legend of Korra _ and is running out of ideas for ways in which to occupy himself since Arthur has commandeered exclusive use of his laptop for increasingly irrelevant Wikipedia tangents. The last time Merlin checked on him, he was avidly reading an article on X-Wings and Merlin had needed to help him backtrack into the realm of nonfiction and explain that  _ Star Wars _ is, in fact, a film franchise and not a documentary.

Also, Merlin is becoming anxious to go back to London—he misses the excitement and all the wonderful things the city has to offer. It would be one thing to stay in the middle of nowhere with Arthur if they were...well, if it was like a honeymoon of sorts, but since they’ve more or less fallen right back into the relationship they had back in Camelot, there’s only so much sitting around watching Arthur read about the history of England Merlin can tolerate.

Still, he has some pretty pressing concerns about bringing Arthur into the city. He considers the merits of leasing a small house in an in-between sort of location...like a suburb or a middling-sized town, thinking it might be easier to let Arthur graduate up towards the largest, busiest city in the country, but in the end he decides against it. He hates the idea of paying rent on a flat no one is even staying in, but he also doesn’t want to move because it’s such a convenient location, and he’s been there long enough that the rent would be much higher if he were to look for anything else in the area later. It’s not that he doesn’t technically have the money, it’s just that he’s been around long enough to know that catastrophes happen and it’s a good idea to save as much as possible in preparation. 

The most important thing he manages to accomplish during their time in the country—with the use of quite a lot of magic and a bit of impressive forgery— is enough paperwork for Arthur to make it appear feasible that he’s been wandering round England since the nineteen eighties. Birth certificates, bank records, GCEs...he decides against a uni degree because anyone who talks to Arthur for more than five minutes will find that implausible. Perhaps someday. He chuckles to himself at the thought of Arthur enrolling at his university and taking his classes. Or maybe he could bring Arthur into his Medieval Studies course for show-and-tell.

“What’s so funny?” Arthur asks him looking up from the laptop where he’s slowly making his way through the sixteenth century and Merlin is trying to decide when or if there is an appropriate time to bring up the nature of his relationship with William Shakespeare.

“Nothing,” Merlin smiles, turning back to the open-source copy of  _ Much Ado About Nothing  _ that he’s rereading on his mobile. Some of the lines Will wrote for Beatrice are lifted almost verbatim from things Merlin said to him.

“I have a question for you, Merlin.”

“Hmm?” Merlin has just got to the end—he’s always loved the happy ending for Beatrice and Benedict, even if Will had made that up out of whole cloth, or perhaps based it on someone else entirely. He remembers seeing it at the old Globe though, remembers Will watching him from the curtain, giving him a secret sort of smile, like perhaps this could be their happy ending too someday.

“Did you never take a wife?”

“No Arthur, I’m gay,” Merlin replies automatically, then he sort of tenses because it...it just slipped out. He hasn’t bothered to hide it in so long, it’s just second nature to correct people who assume otherwise. He looks up at Arthur apprehensively, but Arthur is staring blankly.

“I’m...glad for you?” he says, voice inflecting upward as though it’s a question. “I suppose if you never wanted a wife and the bachelor’s life is for you then…”

Merlin realises after a moment of confusion that Arthur has no concept of the modern connotation of the word “gay,” and that he basically just told Arthur he was happy to be single. Which he is. Kind of.

“But did you never want children?” Arthur asks.

“Not really,” Merlin replies. “And you're one to talk about that, you don’t have any either, so…”

“Ah, yes, well...Guinevere couldn’t give me children,” Arthur says. “It wasn’t for lack of trying though.”

Merlin fights a grimace at the implication of  _ it wasn’t for lack of trying  _ because he has an agreement with his brain regarding thinking about that particular subject, which can be described succinctly as:  _ don’t. _ Still, they haven’t spoken much about Gwen and since Arthur was the one who brought it up...

“Actually, Arthur,” he tells him, “I think that was you.”

“Pardon?”

“Gwen remarried after you died,” Merlin says, “and she was a mother within the year.”

“She...who did she marry?” Arthur demands incredulously.

“Leon,” Merlin says. “She needed…”

“So Leon became King?” Arthur asks slowly.

“No,” Merlin shakes his head. “Gwen remained Queen; Leon was just her husband. He continued to command the knights though. She needed to remarry, Arthur, she needed an heir to the—”

“No, that’s not the problem,” Arthur interrupts, brows furrowed. “I...I’m pleased.”

He certainly doesn’t look it, but then again Merlin can’t really blame him.

“So when you say it was me, you mean—”

“I’m afraid you’re shooting blanks, mate,” Merlin tells him.

“I’m not familiar with that expression,” Arthur snaps. Merlin has taught him that specific phrase to use in lieu of “what the devil are you talking about,” though his tone of voice rather implies the latter regardless.

“Gwen had fou—no, five children. Healthy, strong children, all of them lived to old age,” Merlin says. “You didn't have an heir because of _ you _ , not her. I know everyone used to think it was always the woman who was the problem when these things happened, but we’ve learnt that’s not necessarily the case.”

“I’ll have you know,” Arthur starts in angrily, “that I am virile and have no problem getting—”

“I have no doubt,” Merlin says loudly, because he doesn't need any more mental images of just  _ how _ virile Arthur actually is and what that might look like in practice, thanks very much, “but that doesn’t necessarily correlate. Look, I can direct you to all kinds of articles about infertility and all that, but my theory is that it has to do with your conception. You weren’t technically supposed to exist, after all. Your mother was sterile, and maybe...I don’t know...perhaps it’s an after-effect of the spell that allowed her to have you? We can get you properly tested if you end up meeting someone and wanting to start a family…”

Merlin trails off, chest uncomfortably tight at the thought of it—what if Arthur does do that? What if he  _ does _ meet some girl and ends up moving in with her and then Merlin is just going to be his old flatmate or...or… He has no illusions about how terribly appealing Arthur is, lack of modern sensibilities notwithstanding. He’s undoubtedly going to meet many women when they return to London, women who will be falling  _ all over  _ this gorgeous, chivalrous man—he doubts that it would be a problem even if Arthur were to let slip that he’s the ancient King of Camelot. It would make an excellent premise for a rom com, like another  _ Kate & Leopold. _ Merlin finds the edges of his vision suddenly blurring with tears and he excuses himself to the toilet until they let up.

“I’m not, you know,” Arthur says quietly, once Merlin returns from the bathroom.

“Not what?” Merlin asks, trying to sound less wobbly than he feels.

“Not going to leave you again,” Arthur replies, looking at him steadily—that same intimate gaze they’ve held a thousand times before. Merlin swears he falls in love with him all over again—he  _ aches _ with it.

Arthur looks like there’s something more he wants to say, but he falls silent nonetheless. Merlin nods his understanding.


	5. A Most Befuddling Thing

“Are you  _ certain  _ you can’t just magic this up the staircase?” Arthur whines, dragging the trunk full of all his worldly belongings into the stairwell of Merlin’s—well,  _ their _ —block of flats. There’s a lift of course, but Merlin really doesn’t think Arthur is emotionally ready for the lift, so he’s purposely neglected to mention it.

“I was under the impression you were strong,” Merlin says mildly, pulling his own trunk along easily. If he’s used magic to lighten it just a bit, well...Arthur needn’t ever know. “And we talked about this before we left the cottage: no mentioning you-know-what in front of—”

“I  _ am  _ strong, Merlin,” Arthur snaps, turning around for a moment to look down at Merlin behind him. “You ought to know that; I carried you halfway through the Valley of the Fallen Kings.”

“And I basically carried you to...the lake.”

“Oh really?” Arthur calls down to him, his voice growing louder as he lugs the trunk more vigorously—as though to prove to Merlin just how strong he really is. “So you’re a sorcerer  _ and _ the last of the Dragonlords  _ and  _ now a horse, Merlin? Because I distinctly remember riding most of the way there on my horse—unless that was you as well?” He makes no attempt to apologise for talking about sorcery and dragons and long-forgotten locations at top volume in the echoey stairwell where any of Merlin’s neighbours could be listening. They’ve been out in London less than five minutes and already—

“How much farther?” Arthur calls down to him. He’s a staircase up and Merlin can tell he is struggling valiantly not to let on how winded he is.

“Next landing,” Merlin replies, and then all of a sudden the door next to the landing he’s standing on swings open and there’s Jeremy, who Merlin had quite forgotten all about.

“Martin!” Jeremy says, leaning on the doorjamb. “I didn’t realise you were back, mate.”

“Just got in, actually,” Merlin replies, thinking fast. Perhaps he can scurry upstairs on the pretense of needing the toilet or something, give Arthur a quick briefing on The Jeremy Situation, and then—

“Is this it?” Arthur’s voice booms from two floors above them. Jeremy looks up.

“If it says 5H over the knocker, then yes,” Merlin calls back.

“Who is that?” Jeremy asks, gesturing upward in Arthur’s general direction.

Merlin barely hesitates. “New flatmate,” he explains. “Arthur’s an old friend. He’s going to be staying with me for…”  _ the rest of time, hopefully,  _ “a while.”

“Nice,” says Jeremy, but Merlin can tell he doesn’t really think it is.

“MERLIN!” Arthur, ever patient and even-tempered, roars down.

“I’m coming!” Merlin calls back, belatedly realising that Arthur has just called him by his real name in front of Jeremy, shit. Jeremy cocks an eyebrow.

“It’s a nickname,” he lies. “I’m—I mean, I was an amateur magician? I used to know all these card tricks and the thing with pulling handkerchiefs out of your sleeves and all that...”

Merlin trails off. Jeremy either buys the obvious lie or doesn’t care enough to investigate further and Merlin feels as though he’s been granted a reprieve. Unfortunately, Arthur chooses that moment to stomp back down the stairs sans-trunk, so the relief is short-lived.

“Merlin, I can’t get this key in the lock,” he complains. “Why are keys so bloody small now?”

“Thanks, Arthur. The lock’s a bit fiddly, I got it,” Merlin says, snatching the key out of Arthur’s grasp with one hand and giving him a good shove back up the stairs with the other. “Arthur, Jeremy. Jeremy, Arthur. Gotta run, I’ll text you later.”

Jeremy’s eyes are glued to Arthur, fairly blatantly checking him out. Merlin is certain he’s dying to get a bit more information about the nature of his and Arthur’s relationship, but unfortunately for Jeremy, none will be forthcoming.

“We could all go out for drinks sometime?” Jeremy offers. “Any friend of Martin’s, you know?”

“To a pub?” Arthur suggests.  _ Nice one Arthur, very normal. _

Jeremy nods. “Or a club?”

Good God, no.

“Excellent then,” Arthur replies confidently, probably to cover for the fact that he definitely doesn’t know what a club is.

“We’ll have to see,” Merlin amends. “We’ve got a busy schedule since Arthur’s new in town, isn’t that right, Arthur?”

He elbows Arthur in the rib as surreptitiously as possible.

“Ow! What schedule?”

Merlin manages to get Arthur up the stairs without promising Jeremy anything too specific, when the door next to his cracks open and Merlin steels himself for another hasty introduction. Little Alice, wearing a tiara dangerously askew atop her head, pokes her face out, eyes widening at the sight of Arthur.

“Prince Charming,” she whispers, plainly awestruck.

“King, actually,” Arthur corrects her, not missing a beat.

Merlin opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Alice has disappeared back into the flat and slammed the door shut again. Merlin unlocks his own flat and yanks Arthur inside before further damage can be done.

“Okay, first of all,” Merlin says, locking the door behind them, “I’m Martin here, not Merlin—”

"I’m not going to call you that,” Arthur interrupts flatly.

“Fine,” Merlin rolls his eyes. “Fine, just as long as you don’t bring up magic or Camelot or any of that unless we’re alone. People will think you’re mad. Or worse, they’ll believe you and it’ll get very complicated and we’ll have to move. And I don’t want to move; I like this flat.”

“Really?” Arthur interrupts, again, looking deeply unimpressed. “It doesn’t look much bigger than where we were before, and you really need a new decorator because none of your furniture—”

“I don’t  _ have _ a decorator, Arthur,” Merlin says. “I picked out all this furniture and I think it looks just fine, thank you.”

Arthur looks at him dubiously, and since Merlin learned long ago that there’s no arguing with him when he gets all snobbish, he simply grabs the handle of Arthur’s trunk and tries to heave it in the direction of the bedroom. It does not budge.

“Come on, we need to unpack,” he says. Arthur’s eyes widen and Merlin realises his mistake a split second too late—Arthur lunges for Merlin’s trunk and gives it a tug.

“You cheated,” he announces gleefully. “You’ve magicked this one to make it lighter.”

“Maybe I just have less clothing than you do, did you think of that?”

“Doubtful,” Arthur calls back over his shoulder, halfway down the hallway already with Merlin’s trunk. “Ha!”

Merlin arrives several minutes after Arthur along with the trunk, which he assumes by its weight must be full of rocks, to find him rooting around in the wardrobe.

“Less clothing, you say?” Arthur mocks, running his fingers over rows and rows of Merlin’s shirts. “You make me look positively monastic.”

“Which of us has owned gold-embroidered tunics?” Merlin replies. “None of my clothes are worth more than like thirty quid,”  _ not _ strictly  _ true but how is Arthur to know differently, _ “and besides I’ve had years and years to—”

“Actually, I think I’m going to need one of these.” Arthur pulls out a shirt and holds it to his chest as if to get Merlin’s opinion and Merlin tries not to choke.

“Pride,” Arthur reads off the front. “You should have pride in yourself. And the rainbow—a reminder of good things that follow hard times. I approve.” He attempts to hang the shirt back up, fails, and tosses it over to Merlin, who just barely manages to catch it.

“Mm,” Merlin agrees, not trusting himself to say more. Arthur either finishes his rummaging or loses interest, because seconds later he wanders out of the room and back down the hall, apparently forgetting  _ again  _ that Merlin’s not his manservant anymore and he’s got to unpack his own things.

“Are you finally going to show me what this does?” Arthur calls from the sitting room. Merlin follows him to find him poking hard at the television.

“Don’t—it’s not good for the screen,” Merlin tells him, stopping him from prodding a hole into his expensive flat screen. “And alright, I’ll show you—just don’t panic or anything. Sit down.”

Merlin should’ve known that nothing productive would be accomplished for the rest of the day once he turned on the telly because that has been a constant in Merlin’s life—he is human, after all. Probably. And if Arthur’s reactions are more entertaining than any programme he’s ever seen in his life, well then that’s just an added bonus. The wonderment on Arthur’s face as he watches an advert for toilet roll fills Merlin’s heart to bursting and he has to disguise his laughter with a cough.

“You said there were stories about us, even now,” Arthur says some time later. He’s sunk so far back in the sofa that he appears to be in danger of sliding off entirely and he keeps his eyes glued to the screen.

“Mmhm,” Merlin nods, taking a sip of his fizzy drink (which he has learned that Arthur does not like.)

“Are there any that we could watch on this thing?” Arthur asks, lifting an arm to gesture vaguely at the telly and then dropping it heavily back onto the sofa. Merlin lets out a sigh before pulling up his Amazon Video Library.

As it turns out, Arthur likes Disney’s  _ The Sword in the Stone _ even less than Coca Cola.

“That is blasphemous,” he declares, staring in horror as Kay berates Film Arthur while Film Arthur scarpers off into the woods in search of his arrow. If he thinks  _ that’s _ offensive… Merlin vows then and there never to let Arthur even get wind of the existence of  _ Monty Python and the Holy Grail. _

But it’s not until Film Arthur enters Film Merlin’s house and he sees them side by side that Real Arthur seems to grasp  _ how  _ different this story is from the events that actually transpired.

He sits bolt upright, an expression of mingled revulsion and horror frozen on his face, as he watches Film Merlin serve Film Arthur some tea.

“You alright over there?” Merlin asks him.

“How?” Arthur demands. “How did they get it  _ so  _ wrong? Why didn’t you correct them?”

Merlin laughs. “And say what, Arthur? ‘You’ve got it all muddled, Mr Disney. I knew the  _ real _ King Arthur and he’d have your head for calling him ‘Wart’?”

Arthur glares darkly at the screen and does not speak again until they’ve reached the bit with Mad Madam Mim.

“She reminds me of that batty old sorceress we met at the Cauldron of Arianrhod,” Arthur comments. “Do you remember…?”

He falters at Merlin’s grin and rolls his eyes in disgust.

“Are you serious, Merlin?” he demands.

“You nearly forgot me there,” Merlin accuses, crossing his arms over his chest.

Arthur shoves at him. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did,” Merlin says. “You were going to take Gwen and Mordred and leave me there with that ‘batty old sorceress’ who accepts dresses as payment for  _ very difficult and complicated magic.” _

Then the impact of his own words forces him to halt—they’ve not spoken yet of Mordred once. He can’t imagine it’s a favourite topic for Arthur, and in fact Merlin normally does his level best to pretend that Mordred never existed. Difficult that is, though, since the character seems to have survived all the retellings and mistranslations. The fact that modern audiences have heard of Mordred but not Gaius will forever be a sore spot for Merlin.

“Perhaps,” Arthur admits, the reluctance obvious in his voice, “it was not my finest moment. Thank you, Merlin, for dressing up as a hideous old woman and saving your queen.”

Merlin can’t think of anything to say to that except for, “Dollophead.”

“Idiot,” Arthur breathes out, smiling and turning his attention back to the film.

“There’s  _ got  _ to be something better than  _ that _ ,” are the first words out of Arthur’s mouth when the credits roll at the end of  _ The Sword in the Stone.  _ “Really Merlin, was there nothing at all you could have done to prevent this travesty?”

“People stopped believing that I knew you about a hundred years after you died,” Merlin replies. “My word was no better than anyone else’s after that.”

“Are you always an old man, then?” Arthur asks, turning at last to face Merlin and regarding him curiously. “When they tell stories about you?”

“Pretty much,” Merlin tells him. “Everyone seems to think I was born with a long white beard and a staff.”

“And were you?” Arthur asks.

Merlin pushes him sideways.

“It’s a reasonable question,” Arthur presses, because he’s actually the most obnoxious person ever to live, and Merlin is considering trying to smother him when his voice turns more serious. “But tell me honestly, do you have to use magic to stay looking so...looking the way you do now? If you weren’t trying, would you appear old to me?”

“No,” Merlin replies, annoyance evaporating immediately. “I don’t really age naturally. I can make myself look old, like how you saw me at Camlann, but if I do it for too long it’s difficult to get rid of the wrinkles and whatnot...so I usually just stay like this.”

“Don’t people notice that you never age?” Arthur asks quietly, solemnly. As if he already knows the answer.

“I don’t live in one place long enough for anyone to catch on,” Merlin says.

“So  _ that’s _ the real reason you’ve never taken a wife,” Arthur says, nodding as though he thinks he’s got this all sorted out.

“No Arthur, that’s not why,” Merlin replies. The telly goes quiet as the credits finish and the only sound to be heard is that of Arthur’s breathing. He regards Merlin with questioning eyes, waiting for him to continue in his own time. The sun is beginning to set outside, bathing them in a pinkish light. Were they back in Camelot, Merlin would’ve probably been taking Arthur out of his armour about this time—fitting that he should recall that now, when it was one of the things that led to this realisation in the first place.

“Erm...remember how back in the cottage you asked if I’d ever taken a wife and I told you I was gay?”

Arthur nods again.

“The meaning of that word has changed since you last heard it,” Merlin says. It’s so, so difficult to keep looking at Arthur, but he reminds himself that this part of him, in theory, should be  _ less _ of a problem than his magic and Arthur has already accepted the magic, so... “Gay means… I don’t think we had a word for it back then. At least, not one I’d ever heard. Homosexual?”

Arthur shakes his head, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“Er… oh God, okay,” Merlin groans, giving up on maintaining eye contact with Arthur and staring at the ceiling instead. “When you meet a woman who you’re  _ attracted _ to...you know, who you want. To be with. Like...romantically, sexually? That feeling. Of wanting someone. Whenever I want someone like that, it’s a man. Not a woman. So, no wife.”

He chances a look out of the corner of his eye at Arthur and watches as his face softens in comprehension, despite Merlin’s bollocksed, waffly explanation.

“We didn’t have a word for that,” Arthur says.

“No, I don’t think so,” says Merlin.

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist though,” Arthur adds quietly.

“Who did you know that—”

“I just—I had my suspicions,” Arthur says, his eyes trained steadily on Merlin’s. “I mean, I even… Anyway, I assume since there is a word for it—or multiple words, as it were, people...you know, talk about it now?”

“Yes,” Merlin says at once, relieved that Arthur has moved the conversation along to the general rather than lingering on Merlin in particular. “It’s legal and everything; I could even marry another man if...if I met, or—or wanted—”

Arthur’s mouth drops open and Merlin finds himself backtracking hastily out of nerves.

“I haven’t. I mean, I’ve never...I’ve never married,” he says quickly. “But other people. Have. Married each other. Not me. Mostly because of why you said—because I keep having to move along.”

“Have you,” Arthur says, clearly choosing his words carefully, “ever been with a man?”

“You mean like—”

“Lain with,” Arthur clarifies.

“Erm...yes,” Merlin says, feeling heat creep up into his face.

Arthur closes his mouth, pursing his lips tightly and staring at Merlin as though he’s trying to work out a complex puzzle. Merlin assumes Arthur probably just needs some time to process this development but  _ God  _ is he ever anxious to move on from this subject because he’s very concerned that before he knows it he’s going to find himself explaining to Arthur how he likes it up the arse. And that just… 

“So,” Merlin says, clearing his throat and turning back to the telly, “I’m going to put on  _ Quest for Camelot, _ you might like that one a bit more since you’re already the king there and not a scrawny little page.”

“What?” Arthur starts—evidently he’d still been thinking very hard.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Merlin says out of habit, picking up the remote.

Arthur doesn’t like  _ Quest for Camelot _ much better than  _ The Sword in the Stone.  _ He seems to rouse from his reverie after Excalibur is stolen and spends the rest of the film complaining at length about the age disparity between himself and Merlin in the film. Merlin isn’t sure why he has fixated on that particular issue, but it’s one that has always bothered him too, so he settles happily back into the sofa, wrapped in the comforting familiarity of Arthur’s grousing.


	6. The Phony King of England

“You have to set a passcode,” Merlin tells Arthur later that night, handing the mobile back to him.

“A what?” Arthur demands, jabbing at the screen and mashing numbers at random. Merlin snatches it back before he can bollocks it up further.

“Pick something you’ll remember, a...a birthday or something,” Merlin says, holding the mobile out of Arthur’s reaching fingers.

“Mine, then,” Arthur says.

“Alright…” Merlin shows him the screen as he enters the passcode. “Zero, two, zero, eight. The second of August—that’s your birthday on the modern calendar.”

“Committed it to memory, have you?” Arthur says, taking the mobile from him and practising entering the passcode. Arthur’s hands, which to Merlin have always seemed so strong and as though they were made to wield a sword, are more than a little ridiculous-looking when holding a mobile. Have his fingers  _ always _ been so meaty?

“One of us should know it,” Merlin mutters in reply, pulling his own mobile out of his pocket so that he can enter in Arthur’s number, suddenly conscious of how slim his own hands must look next to Arthur’s. 

“Yours is exactly the same as mine,” Arthur says, staring at Merlin’s hand—no, at the mobile in his hand.

“It’s the same model, yes,” Merlin confirms. “A lot of people have iPhones.”

“How do you propose we tell them apart?” Arthur asks seriously, in the same tone of voice he once used when planning battle strategies.

“We shouldn’t need to,” Merlin tells him. “I carry mine with me everywhere, as you should yours. I want you to learn to use it in case I go out without you—”

“—Or if  _ I  _ go out without  _ you—” _

“—No, not that, you’re definitely not doing that,” Merlin says quickly, repressing a shudder at the thought of loosing Arthur upon the unsuspecting London populace. “I mean, yes, eventually. But not...not anytime soon. I just want you to be able to get hold of me if you need to when I’m out.”

“I think I’m perfectly capable of going out by myself,” Arthur bristles.

“Mm...You just challenged the turnstile on the tube to a duel. Really loudly. During the evening commute. So,” Merlin says, taking the mobile out of Arthur’s hand again and entering his own number, “I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree there.”

All things considered, Arthur had mostly behaved himself at the mobile shop, but that might’ve only been because he was still in shock from the experience of taking the underground—which Merlin has now decided they will never do again as long as they live—and in fact, he has already resigned to himself to the idea of driving Arthur everywhere from this day forward. He’s traded  _ manservant  _ for  _ personal chauffeur,  _ which he guesses is at least a step up. So there’s that.

Arthur leans in to look at the screen over Merlin’s shoulder—he’s so close Merlin can feel his breath on the back of his neck. Arthur has never really been one for personal space...or maybe he was with other people, but he just feels so comfortable around Merlin that he doesn’t notice when they’re practically breathing the same air. Merlin wishes he could say the same, but he’s always keenly aware of Arthur’s proximity, of his nerves thrumming alive at the feel of Arthur’s body heat radiating outward and bathing his skin in warmth. He has to fight not to close his eyes against the sensation and lean into it.

“...I think it wants you to do something,” Arthur says after some time. Merlin sits up a bit straighter.

“Right,” he says, trying to shake off the stirrings of arousal even though Arthur hasn’t budged a centimetre. “You’re going to need an email address. What do you think of ‘a dot pendragon?’”

“Sounds fine,” Arthur says with a shrug. Merlin hears him yawning right in his ear, the sound of which is highly effective at quashing any amorous feelings Arthur’s position may have awakened.

“I think I shall retire for the night,” Arthur announces. He says something else while yawning again—Merlin thinks he hears the words “much bigger bed”—but he’s also preoccupied because “a dot pendragon” is already in use and he’s a bit irrationally bothered that someone has usurped the email address that ought to have belonged to the real Arthur Pendragon. Not that whoever owns it would have any reason to believe that the real Arthur Pendragon might have need of an email address.

“Mmhm,” Merlin mumbles, and Arthur shuffles off toward the bathroom while Merlin tries out “arthurpendragon,” which is  _ also  _ taken.

It takes another five minutes for Merlin to grapple with the mad urge to message “arthurpendragon” and see if he can purchase the username from them before he decides that he’s probably certifiably mad and had better face this dilemma tomorrow morning with a clear head.

Merlin goes through the motions of his evening toilet, still thinking about email addresses and now wondering what exactly he even thinks Arthur is going to use it for, and makes it all the way to his bedside before he realises that  _ Arthur is in the bed,  _ shirtless and clearly completely absorbed in the copy of  _ Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone  _ he’s holding in both hands.

“You’re in the bed,” Merlin says slowly, mostly to himself, but Arthur looks up at him mildly.

“Where else should I be?” Arthur replies as though they do this every day and Merlin ought to have expected to find Arthur under his covers when he came to bed.

“Er…”

Arthur turns his eyes back to his book. “I like this bed,” he says. “It’s big enough.”

“But,” Merlin says, “I’m not sleeping on the sofa.”

“I should think not,” Arthur says, tearing his eyes away from  _ Harry Potter  _ only long enough to give Merlin a concerned-looking glare. “Do you intend to stand there all night or are you getting in?”

“You mean…” Merlin says faintly, trying to speak over the sound of his brain short-circuiting because Arthur cannot possibly be suggesting what it seems like he’s suggesting, he can’t  _ possibly _ ...not after the discussion they had earlier in the day, not after…Merlin takes a deep breath. “You mean get in the bed with you?”

“It’s plenty big enough for both of us,” Arthur says, very reasonably.

“Alright, then,” Merlin agrees, placing a knee tentatively on top of the duvet. “Don’t worry though—we can go out tomorrow and get you your own bed, put it on the other side of—”

“Why?” Arthur asks, still maddeningly calm and apparently reading. “I don’t need my own bed. Remember when we spent the night in the forest hiding from Morgana?”

It’s the first time either of them has mentioned Morgana, and Merlin is surprised at Arthur for bringing her up so casually. Merlin doesn’t like to think about her much either, even less than Mordred sometimes, because he regarded her so highly in the beginning and it’s impossible to forget that, despite all the unspeakably cruel things she did later. And the fact that Merlin had been forced to kill her, and that he still sometimes blames himself for the whole situation.

“Yes,” he croaks, because despite all that, oh God does he  _ ever  _ remember spending the entire night pressed up against Arthur. Even the fear that gripped at him through the long hours lying on roots and leaves hadn’t been enough to  _ completely _ eclipse how he could feel the movements of Arthur’s muscles as he shifted in his sleep, how badly he’d wanted to turn onto his other side and bury his face in Arthur’s back—even through his armour—

“We managed that just fine,” Arthur says matter-of-factly. “And every time we camped together outside the castle, I always had you sleep right next to me.”

“Oh sure, in case you needed anything in the night,” Merlin mutters, removing his knee because he’s suddenly remembered that pulling the duvet back is the first step and getting into bed comes after that. Arthur sets the book down on the duvet.

“Is that really what you think?” he asks, looking up at Merlin with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“I was happy to do it,” Merlin tells him, settling into bed and turning over to face away from Arthur because he doesn’t trust himself to look the other direction. “Really, Arthur, it wasn’t…”

Merlin lets the end of the sentence hang in the air. Arthur says nothing for a minute, but Merlin hears him place the book on the bedside table.

“Merlin?” Arthur asks suddenly, so quietly Merlin can just barely make out his voice.

“Hmm?”

“Is there a word...” Arthur whispers, “...are there people, that you know of, who have feelings—the type of feelings you spoke of earlier...for men and women? Both.”

“Yes,” Merlin says at once. “Yeah, loads of people. Bisexual—bi, that’s the word.”

“Is it?”

“Mmhm,” Merlin says, and because he can’t think of anything else to say about it that won’t come across as intensely personal, adds: “They’ve got a flag too and everything.”

Merlin is  _ desperately _ curious as to  _ why _ Arthur wants to know this, but Arthur goes silent again and Merlin thinks he might’ve fallen asleep until:

“Turn out the light,” Arthur says, even more quietly—so quietly it’s almost a breath, but Merlin hears him, and he knows that he’s asking to see a bit of magic.

Merlin murmurs the spell and Arthur sighs as the room is plunged into darkness.

“Goodnight,” Merlin whispers.

“Yes Merlin,” Arthur whispers back, clearly enough that Merlin can tell Arthur has turned towards him. “It is.”


	7. Good Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Chapters 6 and 7 are both a bit shorter than average so I'm posting them together!

“So,” says Jeremy, leaning across the table at their booth in the pub, “how did you two meet?”

Arthur barks out a loud laugh and raises his eyebrows at Merlin. “Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

Merlin imagines he has about three seconds to come up with a convincing story before Arthur opens with, “It all started when I was practising dagger-throwing with my knights outside the palace back in Camelot and this peasant had the audacity to suggest…”

“Arthur was my primary school bully, actually,” Merlin says, which is the closest version of the truth he can approximate without raising questions.

“Really?” says both Arthur and Jeremy at the same time.

Merlin turns to Arthur. “Don’t deny it.”  _ Seriously. Don’t. _

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I’m not sure I’d say  _ bully,” _ he says, to which Merlin gives him the side-eye, so he adds, “but I’ll grant that I probably could’ve been a bit kinder toward you at the start of things.”

“You got there in the end,” Merlin assures him, satisfied. “By the last year of secondary school, we were…”

“Inseparable,” Arthur finishes for him with a smile, so genuine and soft that for a moment Merlin almost feels as though it’s true, like they’ve always been inseparable and haven’t just reunited after eleven hundred years apart.

“And you’re now...flatmates?” Jeremy says, eyeing Arthur suspiciously, but Arthur doesn’t appear to notice because he’s still looking at Merlin.

“Arthur’s been abroad for some time,” Merlin explains. “For work. He only just returned.”

“Do you travel a lot for work?” Jeremy asks Arthur, who finally looks up at him.

“Not anymore,” he replies firmly, grabbing a chip from Merlin’s plate. “Never doing that again.”

The words are accompanied by a solid squeeze to Merlin’s knee underneath the table, and Merlin gets the message perfectly.  _ I am not leaving you again.  _ Well, then. If Arthur’s goal is to make him cry in the middle of the pub, he’s well on his way to accomplishing it.

“So...no boyfriends?” Jeremy prods. Merlin understands that the question is ostensibly directed to both of them, but Jeremy’s staring right at Arthur and Merlin has to fight not to roll his eyes because apparently they’ve moved beyond subtlety now.

“No,” Merlin answers as Arthur takes an enormous bite of his fish. “Arthur’s not...”

Arthur suddenly starts chewing much faster.

“But it doesn’t...we’re mates,” Merlin says. “Best friends.”

“That’s grand,” Jeremy says. “Hey, how did you manage to cram two doubles into that tiny bedroom? I thought about getting a flatmate once to help with rent but there just wasn’t space.”

Arthur has evidently finished chewing because he butts in with, “Actually, we share a bed.”

Merlin wishes he could melt straight through the floor without incurring suspicion about his magic and considers a hundred possible excuses for escape by the time Jeremy has finished raising his eyebrows into his hairline.

“That’s…”

“Why does he sound so surprised?” Arthur demands of Merlin, correctly picking up on Jeremy’s astonishment. “It’s not  _ that _ strange—we used to sleep together all the time on hunts and quests and—”

“Martin, you hunt? Quests? What—”

“Camping hols,” Merlin replies, thinking fast and forcing a laugh. “We used to call them ‘hunts’ and ‘quests’—there was no actual hunting—”

"Not on your end, there wasn’t,” Arthur mutters. Merlin kicks him under the table, desperately hoping that Arthur will take the hint and shut up before he says something that Merlin can’t lie around.

Arthur glares at him and then spends the rest of the time it takes Merlin to finish his pint and the walk back to the flat in a terrific strop, despite Jeremy’s attempts at further questioning.

“Well,” Jeremy says, fishing in his pocket for his keys as they reach his floor, “thanks for the drink. Martin, Arthur.”

They bid him goodnight and have just about made it up the next staircase when Jeremy calls up.

“Oh, Martin?”

“Hm?” Merlin peers over the railing down at him.

“Would you fancy going out dancing on Saturday?” he asks, leaning on the railing and grinning his most charming.

This apparently snaps Arthur out of his torpor.

_ “Merlin _ is otherwise occupied on Saturday,” Arthur replies for him, in the tone of voice he usually reserves for such declarations as  _ I am the King and you shall do as I say _ , tugging Merlin by the arm toward their flat. 

Merlin is so confused and stunned that he is unable to say anything at all before Arthur has managed to let them in. He’s halfway down the hallway to the bedroom by the time Merlin chokes out, “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?” Arthur asks, though he’s fooling no one—Merlin is perfectly aware that Arthur knows exactly what he’s talking about—and so Merlin feels justified in simply staring and waiting for an explanation instead of replying.

“You...are busy that day,” Arthur says slowly, clearly working through his reasoning on the fly. “You said we were going to…er...read.”

"On Saturday? I don’t remember telling you we were going to be reading all day  _ specifically on Saturday.” _

Arthur throws his hands up in exasperation. “Well, how else do you think we’re going to finish these books? It’s very slow going, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I told you you weren’t ready to read  _ Harry Potter,”  _ Merlin says. “It’d go faster if you learnt more about the modern world and  _ then _ read the books, but no, _ you _ insisted on—”

“I asked what your favourite book was,” Arthur says, crossing his arms over his chest, “and you said  _ ‘Harry Potter. All of them.’  _ And if those are the best books you’ve ever read in the hundreds of years you’ve been alive—”

“But why Saturday?” Merlin presses. “Do you have some reason for not wanting me to go dancing with him?”

Arthur is quiet for so long that Merlin thinks he might not answer, until finally he says;

“I don’t think  _ you _ really want to go dancing with him. I was...trying to help.”

Merlin’s not sure he entirely believes him, but when he puts it like that—an evening out dancing with Jeremy, who is a casual friend at best, versus an evening spent at home, explaining every third word in  _ Chamber of Secrets  _ to Arthur…

“You were right,” Merlin admits. “Thank you for that. But, from now on, when someone asks me out, you let me give my own answer, yeah?”

“Agreed,” says Arthur, before turning on his heel and continuing down the hall, which Merlin thinks is the best he’s going to get by way of an apology.

“Are you coming?” Arthur demands a moment later. “I want to finish up this bit with the Deathday Party tonight.”

Merlin follows him down the hallway and hears Arthur’s muffled voice calling back to him indicating that he’s in the process of removing his shirt, “Now  _ there’s _ an idea—a Deathday Party. You ought to host one for me—I’m the only person alive today who technically has a date of death. It’s the least you could do, really.”


	8. That's How You Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!

“Well, bollocks,” Merlin says a couple weeks later, scouring the bookshelf in his bedroom in the vain hope that his copy of  _ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban _ will appear in front of him. But he knows where it is perfectly well, he can envision it on his desk in his office at school—it’s underneath several big tomes on dialect that someone left for him to read. He’d never got around to them during term and now he’s suffering the consequences.

“Something wrong?” Arthur calls from where he’s curled up on the sofa under a blanket.

“I’ve left Book Three down at the school,” Merlin tells him, walking back into the sitting room and placing his mobile on the coffee table while he checks the bookcases by the window just to make absolutely certain  _ Prisoner of Azkaban  _ didn’t sneak back into the flat while he wasn’t looking.

“Can’t you just get another one on that…” Arthur searches for the word for a moment, “iPad?”

“Very good,” Merlin says, “but it seems wasteful to buy another copy when I’ve already got one at—”

“It’s the illustrated edition you have at school, isn’t it?” Arthur says, because he knows Merlin  _ too  _ well, has probably long ago picked up on how Merlin feels about Jim Kay’s artwork and how much he enjoys sitting cuddled right up next to Arthur with the book spread over their laps. Merlin can only hope Arthur hasn’t thought too hard about any  _ other  _ reasons he might have for wanting to be so close while he reads.

“I won’t be long,” Merlin replies instead of answering the question. “An hour at most, if it’s busy on the tube.”

“I suppose it’s not even worth my asking if I can come along,” Arthur huffs.

“God, no,” Merlin says immediately. “That’s going to be like your final exam—passing for normal at work. You’ve only just barely managed the supermarket. I’m sure we’ll someday reach a point where I don’t even end up having to pay for an entire display of broken bottles every time we go shopping, but for now...”

“Alright, alright,” Arthur says, waving toward the door, every bit the benevolent dictator granting his humble subject a reprieve. Merlin can only grin and roll his eyes as he grabs his keys off the hook by the door.

It’s not terribly crowded in the station and Merlin finds a seat on the train fairly quickly. He’s about to reach into his pocket for his headphones and mobile when:

“Professor Emerson!”

Merlin looks up across the car into Julia’s face—she’s failed spectacularly in hiding her delight at seeing him. He smiles back and gestures to the seat next to him, which she quickly occupies.

“Did you change your mind?” she asks immediately. “Can’t stay away, eh?”

“‘Fraid not,” Merlin tells her. “I forgot a book of mine in my office. Just going to fetch it, then it’s back home for me. What have you been up to? Summer hols treating you well?”

“It’d be better if I wasn’t miserable about having to take Edwards instead of you next term,” she says, glaring at him accusingly. “Despite your betrayal, I think I’ve decided to stick with Medieval studies—”

“That’s brilliant,” Merlin tells her. “Really, I’m glad to hear it. So in that case, you’re going to have to take—”

“Edwards, yes. I’m aware,” Julia says, and they pass the next fifteen minutes deep in conversation about next term, after which Merlin assures her that he does indeed intend to return and she can take every one of his lessons if that’s what she’d like.

“What have you even been doing anyway?” she says with a huff, slumping back in her seat. “Isn’t it lonely and boring?”

“Research,” Merlin replies. “It’s actually been very interesting and...surprisingly, less lonely than expected. And look, if you’re really having trouble with Edwards’s class, I’ll give you my personal email and you can get in touch with me that way. Maybe I can help you out a bit if you get confused.”

“Stodgy old coot,” she sniffs, pulling out her mobile. Merlin assumes she’s talking about Edwards and not him—Julia has no way of knowing exactly  _ how  _ old Merlin really is. “I’ll give you mine as well since you won’t have access to the student database all holed up in your flat doing ‘research.’”

Merlin reaches into his pocket and finds it empty. He shifts in his seat to see if his mobile perhaps fell out, but sees nothing.

“Something wrong?” Julia asks.

“I seem to have misplaced my mobile,” Merlin says, checking under the seat. “Let me think—I had it in the bedroom, then I brought it out into the sitting room and...ohhh.” He pulls a face. “I think I left it on my coffee table.”

“Do you need to go back for it?” she asks.

“No,” Merlin decides. “We’re only a stop away from school anyways; Arthur shouldn’t need—”

“Who is Arthur?” Julia demands instantly.

“Flatmate,” Merlin answers smoothly. He’s gotten quite accustomed to thinking of Arthur as his flatmate and rarely almost calls him his king by accident anymore. 

“Huh. Ironic, don’t you think?”

“How so?” he asks.

“You teach Medieval studies...you’ve got a flatmate named Arthur? It’s kind of an old man name but I’m assuming he’s not an old man—”

“He’s not,” Merlin confirms, stopping to wonder after he says it if that’s a lie. He supposes it depends how you look at it. “Looks like this is me. Where are you headed?”

“Here also,” she says, standing up with him. “Taking summer philosophy to get my suffering over with.”

Julia walks with him all the way to his office, which Merlin appreciates because it gives him an excuse not to stop to chat with everyone he sees. She tells him she’ll be in touch (Merlin anticipates an entire term of emails berating him for subjecting her to droning old Professor Edwards), scurries off down the corridor, and Merlin lets himself into his office.

_ Prisoner of Azkaban _ is right where he left it, and he debates bringing home the linguistics texts, but decides that their weight is a good enough excuse to leave them here. He feels foolish for forgetting his mobile because if he hadn’t he would’ve been happy to linger a bit and catch up with the people he walks past on his way out, but he can’t help his unease at leaving Arthur with no way of contacting him for any length of time.

The tube ride home seems to take forever, and he jogs up the street to his block of flats, fidgets hopelessly in the lift and stumbles into his front door, fumbling with his keys before flinging it open.

Arthur is right in the sitting room where Merlin left him, leaning against the sofa and scrolling through his mobile.

“Sorry,” Merlin says, hanging his cardigan by the front door and trying to look casual, “I hope you didn’t try to text me, I forgot my mobile.”

“You certainly did,” Arthur says without looking up, and Merlin realises that his mobile isn’t on the table where he left it. Then he looks at Arthur, and the corner of his mobile poking out of the front pocket of his jeans, and completely forgets how to breathe.

“My birthday is your passcode too, is it?” Arthur says, smirking.

“Give me that,” Merlin orders him immediately, reaching for his mobile. Arthur is too quick for him though, he pulls back and worms his way out of Merlin’s grasp.

“I thought it was mine at first—really Merlin, you ought to have got us different coloured cases,” Arthur says, still looking at the screen and smoothly navigating his way round the kitchen chairs whilst walking backwards, as Merlin trips, trying and failing to side swipe him.

“You can’t go through people’s mobiles like that,” Merlin says, barely keeping the panic out of his voice. “There’s private information on there, it’d be like—like rummaging through someone’s things in their bedroom without—”

“I seem to recall waking up to  _ you _ rummaging through  _ my  _ belongings on at least three separate occasions,” Arthur replies, now weaving his way back into the sitting room, easily evading Merlin at every turn. “Wood worms, indeed. And that’s just what I can think of right off the top of my head. I’m certain there were other incidents that I’m not aware of.”

Arthur has him there. “That was for your own good,” is the only reply he can think of.

“Maybe this is for  _ your  _ own good,” Arthur says. “You never know.”

“ _ I _ was trying to keep you out of danger so  _ you _ could fulfill your destiny. You looking through my photos isn’t fulfilling anyone’s destiny,” Merlin says, sprawling across the coffee table and trying to take him down by the legs. Arthur hops out of the way.

“I finished looking through  _ your  _ photos twenty minutes ago,” Arthur says. “Nothing interesting there. But  _ then _ I found—”

Arthur holds up the mobile next to his own face, and the worst possible scenario Merlin imagined wasn’t nearly as bad as this.

He’s opened Grindr. He’s read the conversations, clearly, because he’s got a picture of Merlin’s most recent one-off blown up to full-screen. Merlin scrambles back to his feet.

“Really, Merlin?” Arthur says, grinning crookedly and glancing sideways at the man in the photo. Looking at them side by side...the resemblance is even  _ more  _ uncanny than Merlin had originally thought, and it was the thing that made him contact the bloke in the first place. Judging by the look on Arthur’s face, this has not even remotely escaped his notice.

Merlin, a mature and responsible immortal adult, the last Dragonlord  _ and  _ the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth, lunges past Arthur, skids down the hall and locks himself in the bathroom.

He sits down on the rim of the tub, staring at the window and trying to think about what sort of spells he would need to use to squeeze through the frame without falling to his death and where exactly he might be able to hide for the rest of his (indeterminately long) life.

Moments later, Merlin hears Arthur’s footsteps shuffling down the hall, where he predictably stops outside the bathroom door.

“Merlin,” Arthur says. His voice is close enough that he’s probably leaning on the doorjamb—Merlin can picture him perfectly in his white tee shirt and jeans and bare feet, arms crossed over his chest or hands set on his hips. That cocky bugger. Gorgeous, infuriating bastard.

Merlin doesn’t answer him.

“Come on out of there,” Arthur cajoles. Merlin can hear the grin in his voice.

Merlin taps his feet on the tile and stares at his shoes.

“Come on,” Arthur repeats. “We need to have a talk.”

“About you snooping through my mobile?” Merlin says. “Piss off.”

“I’m not sorry about that,” Arthur replies immediately. Apparently nothing delights him more than torturing Merlin because Merlin can tell he’s still smiling. The absolute  _ nerve... _

Merlin glares at the door. “I’m sure you aren’t,” he mutters.

“I’m  _ really _ not,” Arthur says. Any normal, sane person would be apologising for this terrible breach of trust, but not Arthur—no, Arthur’s just doubling down because he’s a stubborn arse who can never own up to it when he’s done something wrong. How did Merlin  _ ever _ miss him?

“No, we need to talk about... erm…” Arthur continues, “vers top fit uncut aubergine emoji robot bird—”

“That’s an aeroplane and his name is actually Sean,” Merlin snaps at him. “He says so right at the beginning of that very private conversation you shouldn’t be reading.”

“—aeroplane, right, thank you Merlin—twenty eight,” he finishes. “How did he work out for you, then?”

“I’m starting to wish I’d stuck with him and never seen you again, as a matter of fact,” Merlin says. Arthur laughs obnoxiously and Merlin finds himself despairing for at least the millionth time that he managed to get dealt the most impossibly extraordinary destiny in existence with the  _ Once and Future Pillock. _

“Are you going to make me break down this door?” Arthur says, and his voice sounds a little further away, like he’s backed up and is preparing to charge. Merlin has no doubt that Arthur is perfectly capable of snapping the bathroom door off its hinges with his shoulder, whether or not he’s wearing a hauberk.

“You wouldn’t,” Merlin calls back, which he knows is a stupid thing to say because Arthur most assuredly doesn’t understand or care about tenant security deposits and definitely has no qualms at all about destroying—

“For Albion!” Arthur cries. “Three...two…”

“Okay, stop stop stop,” Merlin calls back, jumping to his feet and moving toward the door. “Really, please don’t—”

He opens the door to find Arthur completely blocking his doorway, still smiling. Merlin holds out his hand rigidly in front of him, palm upwards. Arthur deposits the mobile into it straight away.

“Would you please let me through?” Merlin asks, already guessing the answer and staring somewhere over Arthur’s shoulder because he has found himself suddenly incapable of looking Arthur in the eye.

“Certainly,” Arthur replies, but does not budge. “On the condition that you promise not to try and escape the flat. You’re to go straight to the sofa and sit down, and then I will make us some tea and we’ll talk.”

“I agree to your terms with one caveat,” Merlin says after a moment’s mental debate. “I make the tea.”

“Are you going to try and poison me?” Arthur asks in perfect deadpan, with the sort of weary acceptance of a man who is far too accustomed to attempts on his life. 

“We all know how that’d turn out,” Merlin grumbles. “I’d end up drinking it myself to save you, like always. No, I want to make the tea because I know you’re going to break my kettle if you try to use it.”

Arthur squints at him as though trying to ascertain his sincerity, but nods, slowly backing up and letting Merlin out of the bathroom.

Merlin more than takes his time making tea, but Arthur waits patiently on the sofa for him,  _ Prisoner of Azkaban  _ sitting untouched on the coffee table. Merlin would’ve expected him to snatch it right up and start reading—he’d been correct that Arthur was  _ very _ taken with the Sword of Gryffindor and seemed exceedingly keen to carry on with the story, but every time Merlin looks in on him now, Arthur’s gaze is trained at the floor, obviously lost in thought.

Finally, when he can dawdle no longer, Merlin approaches the sitting room and sets their mugs of tea on the coffee table, then sits down. It feels a bit like approaching his own pyre, and Merlin feels uniquely qualified to make that comparison because he distinctly remembers doing so. Actually, this might be worse. Merlin feels his chances of escaping death by fire are less dire than the likelihood of emerging emotionally unscathed from this extremely awkward conversation with Arthur. Arthur looks up at him as he sits.

“I’ve been thinking—I know, I know, don’t hurt myself,” Arthur says, but Merlin shakes his head because he wasn’t planning on taking the piss, not when his stomach is twisting itself into knots and he’s still fighting the urge to flee.

“Have you wondered at all why it is that I’ve returned?” Arthur asks him.

This is not at all the question Merlin had been expecting, but he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t ever occurred to him, so he nods.

“Any thoughts?” Arthur prompts.

“No,” says Merlin. “I’ve thought about it but… I don’t know.”

“Sometimes,” Arthur says quietly, reaching for his tea and taking a sip, then setting the mug back down, “since I’ve been back, I’ve had this feeling… I miss Camelot, I miss my people and my knights. Sometimes I even miss the pressures of the throne…” Arthur pauses, and Merlin’s eyes begin to water as he watches Arthur, who he knows is thinking of Lancelot, Elyan, Percival, Gwaine, Leon… “but this feeling I have now. It’s as though, even in this confusing, frightening world where I don’t know how to do even the simplest things anymore...it’s as if  _ this  _ is where I’m meant to be. Do you understand what I mean?”

Merlin thinks about the modern world—with all its faults and shortcomings and problems with no discernable solutions—and nods. He’s learnt to be happy without the kind of security Arthur is talking about because he’s never  _ really  _ belonged before, not since Camelot, and even there without Arthur he’d felt sort of...out of place. Like he was wanted, but still drifting. He’s always had so many secrets, and for the first time in his life, he’s sitting with someone who knows every one of them. If that’s not belonging, Merlin doesn’t know what is.

“But Camelot needed you,” Arthur says, glancing back up at Merlin.

“And you,” Merlin whispers. Arthur concedes his point with a nod.

“Sometimes,” Arthur continues, “sometimes when I look at you...it’s as if this life, what we have now, is the life that was meant for us. The life we couldn’t have had in Camelot.”

“That can’t be right,” Merlin says, shaking his head at Arthur. “Kilgharrah told me you’d return at the time of Albion’s greatest need, and there isn’t even an Albion anymore, so it—”

“Don’t you see though?” Arthur interrupts. “It’s as if Camelot needed us, so we arrived early, and now the world is giving us the chance we were always supposed to have. I’ve returned, in this time...this time where we don’t have the weight of a kingdom on our shoulders, where we’re free to carve our own path...I’ve returned now to be with you. Only to be with you.”

Merlin’s chest feels so tight it’s as if he can’t breathe, but he looks up to find Arthur has moved closer, eyes fixed steadily on Merlin’s face, dropping down to his lips the way he so often did—and how could he not have understood before? Arthur reaches over and threads his fingers of his left hand through Merlin’s right.

“To be with me...in what way?” Merlin asks quietly.

“In every way,” Arthur says, his voice confident and sure.

“Every way,” Merlin echoes in a whisper, his mind racing with the many implications of that statement.

“There’s something else,” Arthur says, looking down at their joined hands, “that I was too cowardly to say before, I… Do you remember my last moments, before I died?”

“Yes,” Merlin whispers, not trusting himself to say more, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay.

“I told you there was something I wanted to say that I’d never said to you before,” Arthur says, “and then I said ‘thank you.’ I know I didn’t say it as often as it was due, but I’m certain I thanked you at least once in all the years you served me.”

“Once or twice,” Merlin concedes.

“I regretted that ‘thank you’ with my last breath,” Arthur tells him. “What I  _ wanted _ to say was that I love you, and I didn’t say it then, so I’m saying it now. It’s been worth all the heartache and bewilderment and loss I’ve felt since my return, and I’m sure I’ll continue to feel for years, if only to be able to come back and tell you that I love you. That I’ve loved you since the time I brought you that flower from… If nothing else...I just need you to know—”

Merlin takes in a shuddery breath, squeezing Arthur’s hand in his own and brushing over his wrist with the other—feeling the strong, steady pulse under his skin. 

“—no, don’t cry,” says Arthur, face blossoming into a grin so wide all Merlin can see through his tears is teeth.

“‘Don’t cry,’ he says,” Merlin mimics, sniffling hard. “‘My greatest regret is dying before I could tell you I love you and oh, did you know my new purpose for living is to be with you? But don’t  _ cry,  _ Merlin.’”

Arthur chuckles. “I already told you once that no man is worth your tears.”

“You were wrong then, and you’re wrong now too,” Merlin replies, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “But what else is new? I can’t  _ believe _ you, seriously, ‘why are you crying, Merlin?’ when—”

“I know  _ why  _ you’re crying,” Arthur says. “I’m not asking  _ why,  _ I’m telling you to stop it because there are a lot of other things I’m looking to be doing with your face right now.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I’d like to finally kiss you, for starters,” Arthur says. His smile hasn’t faltered a bit.

“Well,” says Merlin, “maybe if you do I’ll stop crying.”

“No, I’m not doing that—I’m not kissing you while you’re crying, that’s—no.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Merlin sniffles. “You’ve gone and done it again—this is your fault, as always—”

“Telling you to stop worked last time,” Arthur interrupts. “You insulted me and then went to work on readying my weapons and—”

“No, I deflected with humour and walked across the room to continue crying over you where you couldn’t see me,” Merlin says. “God, you know  _ nothing  _ about psychology, do—”

“So I’ve sort of worked out for myself that you feel the same,” Arthur speaks over him, totally ignoring the insult, “but it still wouldn’t hurt to hear you say it back.”

“You are impossible,” Merlin tells him, “and I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in this world. You’re still horrible though. I can’t decide if I’m a masochist or just entirely mad to have fallen for you, especially— _ what  _ are you laughing at?”

“I’m laughing because I’m  _ happy,  _ Merlin. What say I put you in a headlock and scrub at your hair, will that help this time?”

Arthur snorts at his own joke, which reminds Merlin that these fleeting glimpses of Arthur’s tenderness will be flanked by great swathes of cheek and cockiness and arguing and Merlin feels  _ giddy  _ with the anticipation of experiencing all of it. The tightness in his throat begins to dissipate.

“Better?” Arthur asks him after a moment.

“Getting there,” Merlin answers.

“Good, because I feel as though I’ve waited as long as can reasonably be expected of me so may I  _ please _ kiss you now?” Arthur says.

Apparently the expression on Merlin’s face is enough of an answer because he doesn't even have time for a full breath before Arthur’s lips are on his. There is no hesitancy to the kiss, no trace of uncertainty or apprehension in Arthur’s strong hands—one on the back of Merlin’s neck and the other grasping his shoulder, pulling him closer. Merlin allows himself to be shifted forward, leaning into Arthur’s body and tilting his face so as to… Arthur gets the hint straightaway, angling himself and parting his lips, and Merlin can’t resist touching him any longer; hands scrambling to grip at Arthur’s arms and his neck, running his fingers through Arthur’s hair—which is as thick and smooth as Merlin remembers from when he used to wash it for him—all things he's touched a thousand times before but never  _ like this _ , never just for the sake of  _ feeling  _ him.

And then Arthur breaks away, pulling back for breath and looking so immensely pleased with himself that Merlin can't help but set his own face in an expression he hopes comes across as disaffected.

“What?” says Arthur, smirking.

Merlin sighs. “I dunno,” he says with a shrug. “I've been wondering what it'd be like to kiss you for centuries and...I guess I was expecting something...overwhelming? I'm not sure why, I mean, this is  _ you  _ we're talking about, so...”

He knows his flushed cheeks and rapid breathing and tight jeans are betraying him, but it's that irresistible  _ push-pull  _ of being with Arthur, of getting him worked up and pressing his buttons and having his own buttons pressed in return. Honestly, that alone feels better than any sex he's ever had.

Arthur’s look of outraged incredulity might've cowed anyone else, but Merlin can tell the difference between Arthur when he feels insulted and Arthur when he knows he's been  _ challenged. _

“Overwhelming?” Arthur repeats.


	9. Someday My Prince Will Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where this story earns its rating.

“I'll show  _ you _ overwhelming.”

And then Merlin’s being all but tackled, his back pressing into the seat of the sofa and Arthur sprawling out on top of him. And because it's Arthur and he’s always so physical, it doesn't come out awkward like Merlin thinks it would with anyone else. Instead, it's as though Arthur has moulded to him without any conscious intent, the hard angles of his body slotting perfectly into the dips of Merlin’s, Arthur’s mouth warm and insistent against his. They fall effortlessly into a beautiful rhythm of lips and tongues. Arthur, bracing himself on one arm, runs the fingers of his other hand through Merlin’s hair; Merlin, trying to sneak his fingers underneath Arthur’s shirt, surreptitiously lifts his hips to see if he can get Arthur to thrust against the thigh Merlin’s worked between his legs…

Arthur gasps and lifts his head. Merlin doesn’t even ask why, just cranes his neck to chase Arthur’s lips because  _ more please, come back. _

“You’ll tell me when you want to stop?” Arthur pants, eyes blown dark and shifting his lower body, almost like he’s trying to twist himself away.

“Stop?” Merlin breathes back, knitting his eyebrows together at Arthur because  _ why the hell would he ever…?  _ He doesn’t even understand why they’re talking  _ now,  _ all he can think is  _ kiss me again, kiss me, kiss me, please… _

Arthur, the noblest and most virtuous of wankers, pulls away farther, muscles tensed like he’s actually planning on pushing himself back on his knees, so Merlin immediately locks his arms firmly around his waist to prevent any additional movement in that direction.

_ “Mer _ lin,” Arthur groans, and Merlin knows he means it to sound irritated but it just comes out deep and sexy and Merlin cannot imagine a single reason why Arthur would think he’d want to stop, not when Arthur is on top of him and practically between his legs,  _ God… _

“I don’t want you to feel...beholden,” Arthur manages, still breathing hard, fingers still tangled in the hair at the nape of Merlin’s neck. “If you want to wait, or—”

“Wait?” Merlin huffs out a breathless laugh. “Wait for  _ what?” _

Arthur searches Merlin’s face, then slowly begins to smile. “I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps...you need to think about it for a bit?” he offers. “I just don’t want it to be as though—”

“ _ Arthur,”  _ Merlin says with as much vigour as he can muster, “I’ve wanted this for literally over a thousand years. It’s the longest anyone has ever waited for anything  _ in the history of the world.  _ So if you think I—”

_ “God,” _ Arthur whispers, dropping his head to Merlin’s shoulder and sucking in a deep breath.

“—need a bit more time to mull it over or—”

“Entirely understood. In that case,” Arthur interrupts briskly, breaking free of Merlin’s grip with ease and leaping up off the sofa, making no attempt whatsoever to conceal the obvious bulge in the front of his jeans, “I motion that we relocate to the bedroom forthwith.”

He says this with such austerity and conviction that Merlin is forcibly reminded of the time he watched Arthur address his tiny council of rebels in the vaults under Camelot, when he asked his newly knighted friends to stand and fight alongside him.

“Oh,” Merlin replies, lifting himself up on his elbows and pretending to look round for the nonexistent other people in the room. “Are you positing the question to me or the Round Table?”

“Very funny,” Arthur says, rolling his eyes. Then his expression softens a bit and his voice gentles and Merlin gets another glimpse of him—tender, sincere Arthur—in between dealing with the Noble King and the Pompous Knobhead. “But in all honesty, please do me the honour of allowing me to take you to bed.”

He holds out his hand, palm up, other arm behind his back in the ridiculously formal gesture that Merlin has only ever seen him use in Camelot with visiting princesses. If Merlin places his hand in Arthur’s, Arthur will probably kiss his knuckles and then...oh God, no.

“I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work,” Merlin tells him flatly, hoisting himself up off the sofa, vaulting over the arm, and skirting Arthur into the hallway. “You just want to show off how strong you are, but I already know and I'm not impressed and I can walk to the bed myself, thanks.”

Arthur’s strides forward, the picture of genuine intent. His wicked grin breaks through only a second before he lunges and tries to rugby tackle Merlin into submission, grabbing him round the waist and sending them both crashing to the floor in the doorway between the hallway and the bedroom in a tangle of flailing limbs. Merlin manages to flip himself onto his stomach, get his arms out from underneath and army crawl mere centimeters in the direction of the bed before Arthur reaches up and  _ tickles  _ him, which is quite possibly a more egregious offence than going through his Grindr messages without permission. Merlin unwillingly collapses into helpless giggles, Arthur staggers to his feet, and neither of them get what they want because it ends with Arthur more or less dragging Merlin along the floor by the hands, laughing and stumbling and poking Merlin under the arms at every opportunity. Merlin calls for a detente once they’re level with the bed under threat of using magic to gain an advantage.

“Someday I  _ will  _ carry you to bed,” Arthur announces in a tone of voice that leaves no room for argument, holding his arms out in front of him. Merlin wobbles to standing and glares daggers at him.

“Like old times,” Arthur says, gesturing for Merlin to come forward and undress him. Merlin purses his lips.

“Fine,” he says finally, reaching for the hem of Arthur’s shirt. “But only because I was going to do it anyway.”

Arthur closes his eyes in mock ecstasy at having his shirt yanked over his head for him. Merlin smiles in spite of himself, unfastening and unzipping Arthur’s jeans and taking a moment to admire the sight of him, no longer stiff and straining the way he was on the sofa, but still hard and so obviously joyous that he seems to be having trouble deciding what to do with himself. He’s vacillating wildly between aching, heartfelt sincerity, boyish, rough-and-tumble jubilation, and the scathing humour he’s always liked to hide behind when the words they exchange grow too heavy with longing—it’s  _ all  _ of Arthur, almost at once. Arthur did say he’d show him  _ overwhelming.  _ And it really is, but in the best way.

Arthur catches his eye, makes an exaggerated  _ by your leave  _ gesture, and Merlin responds by shoving his jeans down to his knees. Arthur kicks them off the rest of the way without elegance, tossing them carelessly to the side and reaching out straightaway to get started on Merlin’s shirt. It’s almost awkward, to Merlin at least, having Arthur remove  _ his  _ clothing, but Arthur seems be getting an absurd amount of enjoyment from running his hands all over Merlin’s newly exposed chest and arms, his eyes roving as much as his fingers, lips parted and still turned up at the corners.

Merlin has done his utmost to avoid fantasising too much about Arthur in  _ this _ context over the years, but on the rare occasions where he allowed himself to  _ go there,  _ he had never pictured this much  _ smiling.  _ He'd always sort of feared that if it happened, it would be more like a fast, frantic chase—a race to finish before the weight of consequences and duty crushed it into dust. He couldn't have dreamed up the tussling, the slow, deep kiss Arthur’s giving him now as he reaches for Merlin’s zip, the way Arthur laughs against his lips as Merlin stumbles whilst trying to toe off his shoes.

Merlin places his hands on Arthur’s chest and closes his eyes, focusing on the surging of Arthur’s blood beneath his skin. His heart thrums, steady and loud in Merlin’s ears, in exact tandem with the offbeat of Merlin’s own pulse—thump  _ thump _ ,  _ thump _ thump, thump  _ thump _ ,  _ thump _ thump. Logically Merlin knows he shouldn't be able to hear or feel that, but he supposes it's magic, like it always is with Arthur.

It's magic and destiny that's bound them together for all of time, but  _ this  _ little haven, the air they share between kisses, feels like something they've chosen for themselves. Fate couldn't have dreamt up anything this imperfectly wonderful—the way they move together is all of their own design. Arthur steps back a hair’s breadth to give Merlin room to struggle out of his jeans, which takes longer than it ought to because he's been suddenly mesmerised by the sight of Arthur in just his pants. What strikes him most is how Arthur just gives him space to  _ look.  _ Merlin’s seen it all before (well, except the clear outline of his cock, unmistakably rigid and stretching the fabric of his pants, and that's certainly significant) but it's different to look while Arthur knows he's looking. While Arthur  _ wants  _ him to look. While Arthur’s looking at him the same way.

It occurs to Merlin that Arthur really hasn't ever seen him naked before. Merlin has memories of Arthur’s hands (usually gloved) on his bare skin—his chest and arms, mostly while assessing the seriousness of wounds. But he  _ knows  _ that his legs and what's between them are going to be unfamiliar to Arthur, so Merlin’s expecting a period, however brief, of acclimatisation.

Arthur doesn't seem to need one though—his eyes zoom downward and lock onto Merlin’s cock only seconds before he's crowded himself into Merlin’s personal space again, backing them up together towards the bed. Merlin closes his eyes, wanting to reach out with his magic once more to feel the thudding of Arthur’s heart, but Arthur seizes the opportunity to hook one arm under Merlin’s knees and the other tightly around his back. He lifts up before Merlin has time to do anything but squawk, and tosses him into bed with ease, laughing. 

“That doesn't count,” Merlin tells him, trying to arrange himself with his head on his pillow. 

“Yes, it does,” says Arthur, settling over him on all fours and leaning down to kiss him again. Merlin trails a hand down Arthur’s face, then his neck and further—purposely brushing a nipple before tracing the muscles of his abdomen and fingering the waistband of his pants. 

“Go on,” Arthur whispers. “Take them off.”

Merlin doesn't need to be told again. He pushes the pants down until the head of Arthur’s cock is visible over the waistband and then Arthur sits up to remove them the rest of the way. Merlin has watched empires rise from the ground, witnessed everything that humanity has to offer, but still in that moment he knows that the sight of Arthur, naked and hard, knees astride Merlin’s hips, will always be his favourite.

“You've really wanted this since you brought me back the Mortaeus flower?” Merlin blurts out. He almost can't believe it—it's not that he never  _ wondered  _ about the way Arthur looked at him sometimes… he just didn't really allow himself to consider something as simple and  _ regular _ as a straightforward relationship that includes sex as an attainable possibility.

“No,” says Arthur.  _ “That's  _ when I started to suspect that I might already be in love with you. I saw that ball of light guiding me out of the cave and back to you and it occurred to me how sickeningly romantic it all was and—”

“I sent that,” Merlin interrupts.

“Sent what?” Arthur asks.

“The ball of light,” Merlin tells him. “That was my magic.”

“Of course it was,” Arthur huffs. “That’s...really awful, you know? Just…” He shakes his head in apparent disgust, but his eyes are sparkling and he’s grinning down at Merlin, so Merlin knows he doesn’t think it’s awful at all. Very much the opposite.

And then Arthur is reaching to pull Merlin’s pants down past his hips, crawling down his body. 

“But this?” he says, smirking, freeing Merlin’s cock from the confines of his pants.  _ “This _ I've known I wanted from the moment I first saw you.”

Merlin can't help but snort at that. Arthur frowns, Merlin knows he thought he was being the epitome of sexy—and he was—but the idea that His Royal Arse, The Prince of Prats had looked at Merlin in his overlarge trousers and neckerchief and thought  _ God, I want to fuck him, _ is too funny to be ignored. 

“That's flattering,” Merlin says as Arthur sits back on his knees again, openly admiring Merlin’s body laid out before him. “Tell me, was your usual response to realising you were attracted to someone to throw them in the dungeons?”

Arthur laughs, then moves forward again to rest his body over Merlin’s, chest to chest. “No,” he says, pushing Merlin’s fringe back off his forehead. “That was special, only for you. Are you telling me you didn't want me though? Then?”

“Absolutely not,” Merlin lies. “You were so terrible.”  _ And so, so bloody gorgeous.  _ Merlin’s not sure which he felt was worse at the time.

Arthur gives this response all the credence it merits, leaning down to kiss Merlin and effectively ending the conversation. Merlin becomes cognizant that Arthur has lain fully on top of him and that he's begun to move in slow, pulsing undulations that start at the hips and reverberate outward toward his extremities. His cock slides against Merlin’s with each thrust, punching the breath out of him with the slow drag, a little less dry after the first pass.

Arthur’s tongue moves in the same rhythm as his hips, stroking deeply into Merlin’s mouth and leaving little doubt as to what Arthur is imagining they're doing, where he wants to go with this.

“Arthur,” Merlin breathes against Arthur's lips.

“Mm,” says Arthur, eyes still closed.

“Erm…” Merlin falters, suddenly feeling a bit shy about just coming out with it. “Arthur, do you want to…?”

“Hmm?” Arthur hums, still moving, opening his eyes just a little so that Merlin can see his dilated pupils through his lashes.

“What do you want to do?” Merlin asks him.

Arthur stops moving and is quiet for a moment. “Anything,” he says, finally. “Whatever you want.”

It's a lie, and a terrible one. Merlin knows Arthur knows what he wants, and Arthur probably knows that Merlin knows he's lying, but he's lying anyway—out of courtesy or modesty, Merlin isn’t sure which. But he’s being stupid either way, so Merlin pulls back and frowns at him.

“I don't want to ask for anything you don’t...” Arthur admits quietly.

“No, tell me,” Merlin says, stroking his cheek. “I think I know what you're getting at and if I'm right then you needn't worry. I've done it before. I want to.”

“May I…” Arthur starts, hesitating. “I don't know what the word is for it. I mean, I know  _ one _ but it's crude—that's not what I want to say.”

Merlin waits for him to think about it, now running his fingers through Arthur's hair.

“May I make love to you?” Arthur asks, much more confidently, after a few seconds pause.

“That is quite possibly worse than ‘may I fuck you,’” Merlin tells him with a grimace, starting to sit up and twisting towards the bedside table. “But yes, you may, whatever you want to call it.”

Merlin whispers a spell before opening the bedside table and Arthur’s eyes go wide when he peers over to see the contents of the drawer.

“Every time I've looked in there it's full of junk,” Arthur says. “What—”

“Hidden compartment,” Merlin explains, pushing aside a box of condoms which he gleefully realises he’s unlikely ever to need again, foraging for lube. “Magic. Here you go.”

He tosses the lube to Arthur, who catches it smoothly.

“Tell me what to do with this,” Arthur says.

“Have you ever fingered yourself before?” Merlin asks him, flipping the cap open on the bottle before Arthur has a chance to break it.

Merlin rather thinks he hasn’t—is ready to explain what that means, is prepared to talk Arthur all the way through the process, but Arthur just looks at him questioningly, raises his hand and makes an unmistakable gesture with two fingers.

“Mmhm,” Merlin confirms, surprised and impressed. “That first, but on me.” He flops over onto his stomach and spreads his legs. “Be patient, it sometimes takes a bit.”

He hears the wet squeeze as Arthur prepares his fingers, then hears a second, quieter squeeze that Arthur probably didn’t intend for him to notice. Merlin assumes Arthur is going to use the other hand to touch himself while he works on Merlin. And now Merlin sort of wishes he'd picked a different position for them to do this in so he could watch, but then Arthur’s fingers are between his legs and he concentrates on relaxing, breathing through his body’s reaction of  _ wait, what’s this now? Oh, I remember…  _ rubbing up against the sheet at the same time.

He glances over his shoulder at Arthur, who is stroking himself with his left hand almost as an afterthought, right hand disappearing between Merlin’s legs, face set in an expression Merlin has only ever seen on Battle Strategist Arthur. Even now, he’s reminded of Arthur standing at the Round Table in his armour—stance wide, hands planted on the map, so intensely focussed that his silence almost felt audible—like Merlin could hear the  _ if this, then that, if this, then that  _ plans falling into a neat procession in Arthur’s mind. Merlin didn’t even need to know what they were to trust that they were right—airtight plans of attack, as reliable as the men who pledged their lives to their king. There’s something a little humbling, Merlin thinks, as he rests his chin back onto his own folded arms, about having all of that greatness and valour in his bed, attention centred completely on him.

And then Arthur, in his smuggest voice, says, “This is going along a lot faster than you made it seem; I must be better at it than you are,” and Merlin remembers that he’s actually also a little shit, and how much he loves the fact that Arthur can be all of those things at once. He considers telling Arthur where he can stick his (admittedly very talented) fingers, but reconsiders when he realises that they’re already there, and that he’s not sure he can speak without groaning. He can’t fault himself for his meandering train of thought because what Arthur is doing to him is exceptionally distracting—currently, a satisfying sort of curving-curling-stroking motion that Merlin can’t picture and will have to ask him to demonstrate later. It’s working so well, Merlin feels so lost in it, that he only realises he’s practically  _ aching  _ for the third finger when he feels the tip of it just brushing him, and he hums with relief when it joins the others.

“Alright,” he gasps, a few minutes later. He’s hard enough that it’s  _ throbbing _ and the sheet has begun to feel gritty and coarse, and he’s positive that he’s ready to go, so he opens his legs further and lifts his hips off the bed. “Lube up, push in slow.”

Merlin winces at the sound of his own voice because he expects it to be used as fodder in a later argument about how  _ brilliant  _ Arthur is—at sex, and also generally.

Arthur makes a disapproving sort of hum. “Turn over, would you?” he says. It’s a question, but he makes it sound more like a command.

“I actually know what I’m doing, Arthur,” Merlin tells him, trying to glare at him over his shoulder. “This position is easiest.”

“I doubt it,” Arthur says dismissively, looking as if he’s totally immersed in the task of adding more lube to his own cock. “You ought to face me—it’s a better angle and besides, your back is all sweaty now so I won’t have a good enough grip on you if you stay like that.”

Merlin sees right through the flimsy argument, the brusque tone, the attempt to wrest control of the situation. He knows Arthur better than Arthur knows himself. He’s well versed in the art of reading between Arthur’s efforts at trying to conceal what’s  _ really  _ going through his head when he doesn’t want anyone else to know, can walk straight through Arthur’s shield of invulnerability. Sometimes Merlin thinks Arthur hates that about him almost as much as he relies on it.

“What you want,” Merlin says, smiling up at Arthur as he starts to turn over, “is for me to  _ hold you  _ while you—”

“No,” Arthur snaps immediately, predictably. “That’s not—”

“Yes, it is,” Merlin states, grinning his fondest because he knows it and Arthur knows it and it’s ridiculous that he’s even  _ trying  _ to deny it. 

“Are you insinuating that I want a _ hug?”  _ Arthur snaps, failing to look as indignant as Merlin knows he thinks he does. “Because I—”

“You  _ do _ want a hug,” Merlin says, nabbing Arthur’s pillow and using it to prop up his hips. “You  _ need _ a hug more than anyone I’ve ever met. That or a good hard smack upside the head.”

“Well I suppose if those are my options, I’ll take the hug,” Arthur replies, shuffling forward on his knees to position himself between Merlin’s legs.

“Is it really so difficult for you to just come out with it?” Merlin says with a laugh. “You want the full cuddle and snog, so come down here and get it.”

He beckons Arthur closer with both hands. Arthur hesitates for a second before conceding defeat by lowering his body into the cradle of Merlin’s legs, elbows at either side of Merlin’s ears.

“Possibly,” Arthur whispers, dropping his head to Merlin’s shoulder and burying his face in his neck, shifting his hips in an attempt to line himself up. Merlin curls his torso in and drops a hand to Arthur’s cock, guiding him forward.

Merlin would never, not under torture, not even if he lives another thousand years, admit this to Arthur, but Arthur isn't even inside yet and Merlin’s already convinced it’s going to be the greatest sex he or anyone else has ever had. Easily worth waiting eleven centuries for.

Arthur’s breath is satisfyingly shaky and deep as he pushes in, the most welcome of intrusions, and Merlin’s so fixated on it that he doesn’t notice right away that Arthur’s actually pressing kisses into his neck—hot and sloppy and lingering, as his fingers grasp at the fabric of the pillowcase above Merlin’s head. Merlin pulls his hand out from between them and wraps both arms tightly around Arthur’s back, holding him close and relishing in the way Arthur’s sigh fans over the skin of his neck, how he noses his way along Merlin’s stubble before finding his lips and kissing him again. One of Arthur’s hands leaves its post to cup Merlin’s face, angling Merlin against his mouth as he inches his hips forward—slow, controlled, careful.

“Alright?” Arthur breathes as he stops moving his hips and pulls back from the kiss just enough to read Merlin’s expression through his half-lidded eyes—making sure he’s not hurting. Merlin appreciates the courtesy, but it’s not what he’s looking for right now, so he thrusts up, pushing his cock against Arthur’s stomach and trying to get him to  _ move. _

Arthur takes the hint; removes his hand from Merlin’s face to brace himself back on his forearm, and rolls his body in a rocking sort of up-and-down motion—not at all like the long thrusts Merlin’s accustomed to from previous experience. He’s unsure how he feels about it at first because it’s sort of a barely-there sensation in comparison, but he realises the third or fourth time Arthur does it that it has the advantage of Arthur’s stomach rubbing against the full length of his cock on every stroke, so he quickly reevaluates his position on the matter.

Arthur drops his forehead and touches it to Merlin’s as he continues to roll his hips, eyes closed and lips parted, not kissing but sharing breath all the same, so intimate that Merlin feels as though everything outside them has ceased to exist—that the entire cosmos has been reduced to him and Arthur and even the bed beneath them is half-real at best. Destiny must be having a good laugh, watching them now.

“Can’t you— _ uh _ —can you,” Arthur pants, and Merlin has no idea what he’s getting at until he shifts his weight onto one arm and uses the other to swat at Merlin’s thigh, grasping blindly backwards and tugging at his knee. “Can’t you just... _ mm _ ...please…”

Merlin has to bite his lip to keep from smirking or giggling, hoping Arthur doesn’t see it because if he does he’ll be tetchy later at Merlin for having the emotional upper hand. But Merlin understands the message. He lifts both legs and wraps them around Arthur’s back, settling his heels into the flesh of Arthur’s backside and digging them into the muscles there as they clench with each forward motion. 

And then he feels it, right then, the change in angle that nudges the head of Arthur’s cock into his prostate when he pushes in, bringing it sharply to the forefront of Merlin’s focus. Merlin lets out a low, involuntary groan, which increases in pitch as Arthur pulls back because  _ that _ drags his cock—now slick enough to lessen the friction—against Arthur’s stomach and Merlin realises with a confusing mixture of dread and deepening arousal that Arthur has  _ really  _ got him now—that every tiny movement from here on out is going to unravel him stitch by stitch until he’s shaking and panting and falling apart all around Arthur.

_ “There _ it is,” Arthur whispers, smug again—smug as can be,  _ damn it, _ and it’s as though he’s been waiting to hear that sound because he repeats the exact same  _ push-drag _ that earned him the noise in the first place, but faster this time. And then again, and again, and again, and Merlin can only clench his fingers into Arthur’s back and curl his toes and try to console himself with the fact that Arthur really  _ is _ the starry-eyed sop he tries so hard to pretend he’s not. Arthur is the one who asked for the octopus-style sex, so if Merlin just gives up and comes all over him before Arthur is ready then he really only has himself to blame. Or something like that. Merlin keeps losing his train of thought because there’s not a single thing Arthur is doing with his body right now that doesn’t feel as though it’s setting Merlin on fire. The nudging on his prostate is reaching a pitch that threatens to have his eyes rolling back into his head before long; the rubbing where his cock is trapped snugly between his own body and Arthur’s is gentle, but insistent and rhythmic enough to keep from being lost in the bombardment of sensations—even the press of Arthur’s chest against his is warm and steady and amazing.

It occurs to Merlin, when Arthur leans down and kisses him again, that Arthur isn’t even really moving  _ that  _ much, because he seals their lips together without difficulty and stays there even as his lower body keeps up the same relentless motion. Merlin kisses back and holds tight and continues mentally grappling with the inevitability that it’s going to be over soon—at least for him—because he can already feel the buildup rising inside him, try as he might to ignore its pull. 

Arthur lets out a short, sharp grunt into Merlin’s mouth and all at once Merlin notices a thousand tiny changes; the shaking of Arthur’s arms, the way his kiss goes a little sloppy and unfocused, a jerky edge to his movements that wasn’t there a moment ago. Merlin turns his head slightly, pressing his mouth to Arthur’s jaw instead of his lips to take in a great deep breath. He’s glad he did because Arthur, who had been extremely quiet up until a few seconds ago, now seems unable to _ stop _ making noise and Merlin has gone and taken away the option of muffling the sound in kisses. So Merlin stops fighting it and lets the thrumming inside himself rise in time to the  _ uh uh uh uh  _ accompanying the rocking motion of Arthur’s hips.

“God, I have to…” Arthur groans out, burying his face back in Merlin’s neck and the sound of his voice is what does it in the end, Merlin gasps and holds even tighter and comes and comes and comes with  _ Arthur  _ between his arms and between his legs and all around him and for so long, there was no Arthur and now there’s nothing that  _ isn’t  _ Arthur—golden, miraculous Arthur, who fought him and kissed him and pushed him and saved him over and over again. Arthur who completes him and gives him purpose, Arthur who said he wanted to  _ make love  _ to Merlin, let Merlin poke fun at him for it, and then did it anyway, Arthur who—

_ “Oh,” _ Arthur breathes, and then there is a split second of silence as he goes absolutely stiff, exhales a loud, stuttered sigh, then trembles all over, buried as deep inside as he can go, and Merlin can  _ feel  _ him coming, he feels it in every muscle of his body—in the damp air he pants against Merlin’s shoulder and the flutter of his eyelashes on Merlin’s neck. In the shaking of his arms bracketing Merlin’s face, in the beating of his heart. Merlin can hear it again, pulse steady and soothing in his ears. It’s the tandem beating but it feels different now, faster—more like Arthur’s heartbeats are being enveloped and braced by his own in the same way Merlin’s wrapped his body entirely around him. Arthur’s grabbed so tightly with both hands to the pillowcase that Merlin can feel the stretch of fabric against the back of his head, and he presses a kiss into Arthur’s hair as he lets out one last, great sigh and stills.

“Yeah,” Merlin says about a minute later, which he thinks—given the circumstances—is an accomplished and eloquent statement, and certainly more than Arthur can manage.

Arthur pulls out, flops over onto his back next to Merlin and takes in, then puffs out, an enormously huge breath. He’s quiet for a long moment before: 

“That,” Arthur says, looking down at the wet mess all over, “is disgusting.”

“You don’t say,” says Merlin, shifting awkwardly and trying not to think too hard about the slow, unpleasant leaking happening between his legs—something he’s not felt in a very long time, not since condoms became widely available.

“I don’t know if the bedclothes are worth saving.” Arthur peers under the duvet at the fitted sheet, eyes widening.

Merlin smirks, his eyes flash, and everything is spotless once more. Stomach, legs, sheets—all dry.

Arthur lifts his head a couple of inches off the bed and stares at him. “You know that right there might’ve been enough to convince me to repeal the ban on magic.”

Merlin can’t help but laugh with the sheer joy of it, of languishing here with Arthur in a lazy post-sex stupor, and then Arthur is laughing with him, loud and happy and free, his arms splayed out to his sides and his eyes fixed on Merlin.

“We’re going to do that again sometime, right?” Merlin asks, watching Arthur’s face.

“As soon as physically possible,” Arthur promises, equal parts ardour and warmth in every word.


	10. Try Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning: from here on out, the rest of this story is pretty much just fluff and humour.
> 
> A portion of this chapter was inspired by this [tumblr post](http://lao-paperman.tumblr.com/post/163687103803/cosmo-sex-tip-254).

“Who is your favourite person ever to have lived?” Arthur asks the next morning as he’s attempting to prepare their breakfast. He pauses in his efforts to operate the toaster (which is unplugged) to add: “Obviously not including me.”

Merlin looks up at Arthur from the sitting room, where he’s reading in his armchair. “No need to exclude yourself, the answer is the same either way. It’s Gwen. Gwen is my favourite person to have ever lived.” Merlin pretends to go back to his book.

“Guinevere is your favourite over me?” Arthur asks, obviously disbelieving.

“I’ve said so before,” Merlin reminds him, still trying to look as though he’s reading.

“May I ask why?” He pushes the lever down on the toaster again and then, when it pops stubbornly back up, glares at it as though he’s contemplating running it through with a kitchen knife.

“I shouldn’t think you’d have to,” Merlin says. “She’s better than you in every conceivable way.”

“How so?” Arthur challenges, finally managing to plug the cord into the outlet on his third try. He depresses the lever on the toaster successfully and nods sternly at it as though he has bested it in combat.

Merlin doesn’t even need to think about it. He begins to count the reasons on his fingers. “Well, for starters, she’d be much easier to live with than you are. She knows how to clean things without breaking them, she’d ask before borrowing any of my belongings, I’d be able to take her out in public without fearing the legal repercussions of her actions… I could keep going, but essentially there’s nothing you can do that she can’t do better. There's nothing you've got that she hasn't.”

Arthur folds his arms over his chest triumphantly. “I know from experience that she hasn’t got a cock,” he says, as if this is a great revelation. “And I have it on good authority that you’re rather fond of mine.”

“You’re right,” Merlin admits, as though thinking hard to digest this new information. “I suppose I could keep you on—not all of you, just your cock—and then I’ll go to Gwen for every other thing I could ever possibly want or need. Problem solved.” Merlin punctuates this statement with a sweet smile.

Arthur’s response is to fling jam in his face, but Merlin just wipes it off delicately with his hand and licks it off his fingers. He watches Arthur struggle with his attempts at continuing to appear cross, but when he gives in and walks over to where Merlin is sitting, Merlin grabs him by the shirt and pulls him down for a kiss. Arthur licks the strawberry taste out of his mouth and smiles against his lips as the toast pops up.

—

“So I have this theory,” Arthur is saying, several weeks later. “Are you ready?”

They’re drunk—too drunk. Well, Arthur is at least a couple of drinks beyond arseholed and Merlin is not too far behind. But they’ve found a brand of wine that Arthur says tastes almost exactly like the wine they used to serve at feasts in Camelot, so what was Merlin to do but order a whole carton? At least he had the good sense to insist that they get tanked at home where they can’t embarrass the shit out of themselves in front of anyone but each other.

“Lay it on me,” Merlin says solemnly.

“I...could do that,” Arthur says, squinting at Merlin’s lap as though he’s seriously considering it. Merlin can tell he’s trying to get his eyes to focus and failing.

“No, you really couldn’t, mate,” Merlin tells him. “You’re properly shitfaced. I meant your theory. Tell me.”

“Oh,” Arthur says, shaking his head. “Right. My theory. So you said that I was supposed to return in the time of Albion’s greatest need.”

“No, I didn’t say—Kilgharrah said that. And who knows what he meant by that—maybe tomorrow some kind of dreadful war will break out and you’ll go fetch Excalibur from the lake and stop the bullets with it...somehow. Or something. Who knows?”

"I know, Merlin,” Arthur drawls, though his seriousness is undercut by the way he sways forward dangerously. “It's my destiny after all."

"Oh, no it's not. If I've learnt anything at all about destiny, it's that you and I? That’s destiny. No. I mean, one destiny—you and I have one destiny. And that all destiny-related information gets delivered to me, not you."

“Right well, perhaps...perhaps that’s changed. And that’s the prophecy. What if—listen. What if Camelot, when we were there before, what if that was the time of Albion’s greatest need? What if that was me returning? From now?”

Merlin lets his words sink in for a moment before searching Arthur’s face for any sign that he’s about to start laughing—but there are none. He’s totally serious.

“I’ve let you watch far too much Dr Who,” Merlin says, snatching up Arthur’s wine glass before he can attempt to refill it. He stumbles toward the kitchen with both glasses and the remnants of the bottle they’d been drinking from. “I’m to blame for this madness. You weren’t ready, but there’s a new series starting and you won’t let me binge watch anything without you—I should’ve just downloaded the new episodes and watched them while you were asleep without telling you. Arthur?”

Merlin returns to the sitting room just in time for Arthur to mumble “How certain are we that I’m not a Time Lord?” before passing out on the sofa.

—

“What would I need to say in order to convince you to call me ‘sire’ in bed?”

Arthur is completely naked and splayed out attractively in the middle of the bed with his arms behind his head, watching Merlin make his way down his body with kisses. Merlin had been getting ready to suck him off when the impact of these words hits him. He only just manages to tamp down the urge to cuff Arthur upside his stupid, beautiful head because as he’s raising his hand, a much better idea occurs to him.

“Nothing, my lord,” he says instead, trying to look as docile and angelic as possible to lull Arthur into a false sense of complacency, brushing his hand sweetly against Arthur’s cheek instead of hitting him. Twat.

Arthur smiles in a disgustingly satisfied fashion, and settles in more comfortably. “Is that so?” he asks, voice distractingly low—but Merlin has a point to make here and will not be deterred.

“Whatever pleases you, your highness.” Merlin tries not to gag on the words. He lowers his gaze subserviently.

“By all means, carry on,” Arthur says with a leisurely, lordly gesture toward his cock.

“You have no idea,” Merlin continues, leaning up again to kiss Arthur’s chest, “what an honour it is…” he licks at his neck, “to be of such service to you,” he blows lightly on the shell of Arthur’s ear, “sire.”

Arthur’s cock, pressed against Merlin’s stomach, gives a twitch.

“Long live the king.”

And then, fast as lightning, Merlin reaches up and pulls the top of the sheet upon which Arthur is lying over his head. He takes advantage of Arthur’s momentary confusion to leap off the end of the bed and, using all his physical strength and even possibly some magic, gives the hem of the sheet an almighty yank, which sends Arthur tumbling off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. Merlin watches Arthur grapple fruitlessly with the sheet for a few seconds, no longer trying to suppress his laughter, and flops back onto the bed, getting comfortable on his stomach with his chin resting on his forearms, peering over the mattress and waiting for Arthur to find his way out of the tangle.

Arthur’s head appears a moment later, hair in adorable disarray and a familiar expression of baffled outrage on his face, and Merlin stops his snickering abruptly, hoping he doesn’t look as fond as he feels.

“Did you just try to assassinate me?” Arthur demands.

“No,” says Merlin with a straight face, eyes wide. “I’m fairly certain I succeeded.”

“Treason,” Arthur thunders, still struggling to extricate himself from the sheet, and Merlin loses the fight against his laughter again. “That’s high treason—I’m going to—”

“You’re going to what? Throw me in the dungeons? Put me in the stocks?” Merlin suggests through his giggles.

“No,” Arthur growls, finally tearing the sheet off and leaping back onto the bed, manhandling Merlin onto his back. His eyes glitter dangerously. “The penalty for treason in this household is being tickled within an inch of your life.”

Merlin scrambles away from him so fast he falls off the side of the bed.

—

Merlin had completely forgotten about it until they reach the part in Goblet of Fire when Harry meets Amos Diggory and he spots his own name on the page a few lines in advance of where Arthur’s eyes are fixed and he has a wild moment where he considers chucking the book out the window and informing Arthur that the rest of the series really just goes downhill from there and… His stomach sinks with cold dread when Arthur stops reading abruptly and his eyebrows raise in surprise. “Merlin’s beard,” he mouths.

“Merlin’s beard, indeed,” he says, smiling at Merlin, cupping his face in one hand and rubbing a thumb fondly over his scruff.

Phew.

Merlin’s almost forgotten about it again until a few days later when they’re out shopping.

“Merlin’s beard!” Arthur blurts out, jumping sideways and somehow still looking deliciously athletic whilst narrowly avoiding being flattened by a kid barreling past on a hoverboard.

The kid brings his hoverboard to a sudden stop and whirls around.

“Cheers, mate!” he calls enthusiastically to Arthur. “Don’t let the Muggles get you down!”

Shiiiit.

From that day forward, when anything remotely startling or exciting happens, Merlin winces in anticipation because it always comes— “Merlin’s beard!” And then Merlin regrets ever even mentioning the Harry Potter books to Arthur at all because it’s only going to get worse. He’s going to look back fondly on the days when Arthur was shouting “Merlin’s beard!” at Roombas in the electronics store before stepping on them and breaking them, because before he knows it it’s going to be “Merlin’s pants!” or worse— “Merlin’s most baggy Y-fronts!” or, God forbid, “Merlin’s saggy left bollock!” instead for the rest of their lives and sometimes Merlin wishes Rowling hadn’t bothered to mention him in the books at all.

Other times, it’s not so terrible. After particularly good sex, Arthur starts asking when he’s going to be awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class.

—

“Do you miss Gwen?” Merlin asks one quiet evening in bed, head resting on Arthur’s broad shoulder and legs entwined under the sheets. It had stormed all day and so Merlin and Arthur had stayed indoors and wound up having a long, depressing conversation about the London bombings during World War II and how Merlin learnt that he no longer had the power to raze an army, watching helplessly as the city caught fire. So the mood is solemn and still. Rain still batters against the windows.

“Yes,” Arthur says simply.

“So do I,” Merlin whispers.

“I miss her counsel,” Arthur continues, smoothing his hand over Merlin’s hair. “She always knew what to do, especially when people needed help. I thought of her today when you were telling me about watching all those houses burn…she would’ve known the right thing to say to you. To make you feel…I wish I knew how to fix everything the way she used to.”

“When I came back,” Merlin whispers thickly, “without you, from Avalon...I made it to Camelot and she’d already lifted the ban on magic by the time I got there. She knew before I arrived—she called me to the Round Table and asked me to join the council. Not as a knight, but as Court Sorcerer. I sat at her left from that day forward—the way she used to sit at yours.”

Arthur’s arm moves around Merlin’s body and holds him tighter.

“And you served as her advisor? All her days?” Arthur asks, voice surprisingly calm and level. Not hiding tears.

“All her days,” Merlin confirms. “And for her son, King Elyan.”

Arthur’s jaw moves against the top of Merlin’s head—though he can’t see it, Merlin knows he’s smiling.

“The longer I’m here with you,” Arthur says, “the further away Camelot feels. That first night in the cottage… I wept until I fell asleep, thinking of her. But in the morning, it was as though months had passed. Now it seems like decades. I don’t grieve in the way I would have imagined; the times I really feel bereft of her are when I can’t think of how best to say the things I want to tell you.”

“I think she knew,” Merlin says. “How I felt about you.”

“Did you never speak of it?” Arthur asks. Merlin lifts his head to look at him.

“Never. But she must’ve known.”

“I’m certain she did,” Arthur nods. “About both of us. I loved her very much and marrying her was undoubtedly the best decision I ever made as king. In fact, I sometimes wonder if that’s why I was there to begin with—back in the time of Camelot, that is—because without me she’d never have been able to rule. You said it yourself: she was a better queen than I was a king. So I’m glad for marrying her, but I also hope that you don’t feel as though I wish it was anyone else here with me.”

Merlin snuggles back into Arthur’s shoulder.

“Was it torture?” Arthur asks after a moment’s silence. “Watching me with her?”

“No,” says Merlin, lifting his head again. “No, never. It wasn’t as though I imagined that anything could come out of my… I mean, sometimes I felt as though you might’ve been looking at me like… but no. People just didn’t, back then. And you were the king, it just wasn’t…” Merlin shrugs. “I knew it couldn’t be. I felt how I felt and that was just my burden to bear.”

“Too many burdens were yours to bear. And I was looking at you,” Arthur says. “The way you thought I was.”

“Well, now I know that,” Merlin tells him. “Obviously. But I didn’t ever think of it in terms of me against Gwen. She was your wife.”

“It’s sort of telling when I think about it now,” Arthur says, chest rising as though he’s about to laugh, “but in the years I was married to Guinevere, I never spent more than a couple of waking hours with only her. You were constantly there when we were together, and if I was alone with someone, it was more likely to be you than her.”

“I’m sorry for cockblocking you then,” Merlin tells him, poking him in the ribs.

“Don’t be. I wanted you there,” Arthur says. “I almost insisted on it—do you remember the time Guinevere and I were to go for a ride on our anniversary and I brought you along?”

Merlin chuckles.

“And then I realised I was standing there fooling around with you when I was supposed to be romancing my queen,” Arthur continues. “My point is that I chose to bring you with me. Everywhere. Always.”

“I know. You never gave me a day off,” Merlin says.

“Eleven hundred years wasn’t enough time off?” Arthur asks.

“No, that about did the trick,” Merlin says. “I’d almost begun to miss you.”

Arthur snorts, then sighs and shoves Merlin over so that he can slot in behind him and wrap his arms around him.

“When I died,” Arthur whispers into his hair, “I was at peace in your arms. There was never anyone else I would have chosen. Even then, I wanted yours to be the last face I saw.”

—

“If you’re so certain you already know the answer,” Arthur says, clicking on the confirmation email, “then why are we even bothering with this?”

Merlin doesn’t really have a good reason. He supposes he just wants to see the proof for himself.

“Humour me,” he says instead, “and budge up, would you?”

Arthur removes his arm, allowing Merlin to perch on the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in. He leans in, resting his elbow on Arthur’s shoulder.

“First question,” Merlin says. “‘Moon or stars?’”

“Stars give you information,” Arthur says. “You can see where you’re going at night if you know—”

“Then pick that one,” Merlin tells him. “Next question: ‘One of your house mates has cheated in a…’”

“Well I’m not doing that,” Arthur says, pointing to the other half of the screen, which reads, “Lie and say you don’t know (but hope that somebody else tells Professor Flitwick the truth.)”

“That’s the coward’s way out,” Arthur declares, scrolling through the options. “This one.”

“‘You would not wait to be asked to tell Professor Flitwick the truth,’” Merlin reads aloud. “So what you’re saying is that you’re a swot?”

“I’m not familiar with that word,” Arthur says, “but I’m choosing to believe it means ‘an honest, valiant, and devastatingly handsome man,’ in which case, yes I am, thank you Merlin. Next question: ‘Four boxes are placed before you. Which would you try and open?’ Not that—wait, Merlin’s—”

“Don’t just pick that one because you know me,” Merlin says, grabbing Arthur’s hand to stop him from choosing the option automatically because he saw Merlin’s name.

“But if it had your mark, I’d know it was safe to open,” Arthur reasons.

“Well, in this story Merlin was a Slytherin—”

“You’re not a Slytherin,” Arthur says immediately. “You’ve got no sense of ambition whatsoever, you’re not the slightest bit cunning, you—”

“Right, so this isn’t me Merlin, it’s an entirely different character who happens to have my name, he doesn’t—wait, look at that one.”

“‘I open only for the worthy,’” Arthur reads. “Hmm.”

“You’d want that one,” Merlin says. “You know you would. Any chance to prove to people that you’re worthy of just about anything—that’s what you’d go for.”

“Fair point,” Arthur concedes. “Alright, ‘Which of the following would you most like to study?’ Not ghosts, I’ve learnt my lesson there. Not trolls, I’ve had enough of them for several lifetimes… well, the centaurs in the books are skilled archers. I feel as though studying them would yield information about ranged combat.”

“It always comes back to weapons with you, doesn’t it?” Merlin sighs as Arthur chooses ‘Centaurs’ and moves on.

“‘Given the choice,’” Arthur reads, “‘would you rather invent a potion that would guarantee you…’”

“‘Glory,’” Merlin answers for him without looking.

“‘Glory,’” Arthur confirms. “Would you rather be… I’ve never wanted to be envied; envy leads to enemies. ‘Trusted,’ that’s a good one. ‘Praised…’”

Merlin snorts. “That’s you, definitely; you live off of praise.”

“No, I don’t,” Arthur says, twisting in his seat to look at Merlin. “I’d much rather be trusted than have people telling me what I want to hear… ‘Liked’ is a possibility. I probably would’ve chosen ‘Feared’ when I was first crowned, but certainly not now…”

“So it’s between ‘Liked’ and ‘Trusted’ then?” Merlin says. “I know you’re prickly about this subject but I feel like when it came down to it, the whole me-having-magic thing upset you mostly because I kept it from you, not—”

“That’s true,” Arthur says. “I felt as though I’d trusted you with everything and you had this enormous part of your life that you’d hidden from me… I think I’m going to have to choose ‘Trusted.’ And… ‘Left or right?’ Right, that’s my sword arm.”

“I knew it,” says Merlin as the next page finishes loading to reveal a red background and Gryffindor crest in the centre. “Of course you are.”

“Well that was a waste of time,” Arthur says. “You’d clearly already Sorted me before we’d even started so—”

“You Sorted yourself by existing,” Merlin replies. “You’re the most Gryffindor person ever to be born. The Hat wouldn’t even have to touch you; it could Sort you from across the room.”

“What House are you then?” Arthur asks him.

“What do you think?” Merlin asks, leaning more heavily against him. Arthur sets the laptop onto the coffee table and pulls Merlin down into his lap, letting his legs hang over the armrest.

Arthur considers. “Well, you’re certainly odd enough to be in Ravenclaw, but I also can’t imagine you trying to answer riddles to get into your chambers—you’d wind up sleeping in the corridors every night. And we’ve already established that you’re not a Slytherin. You’re brave enough to be in Gryffindor…”

Merlin warily waits for him to finish his sentence.

“...but Gryffindor is about honour and glory and you said it yourself, that’s not why you do what you do. So I hate to say it…”

Merlin stiffens. He swears to God if Arthur dares to...

“...but I’m going to have to wager that you’re a Hufflepuff.”

“And what,” Merlin asks, narrowing his eyes dangerously, “exactly, in your most honourable, glorious opinion, is wrong with being a Hufflepuff? Consider your answer carefully if you don’t want me sending your lifeless body floating back to Avalon again.”

“Are you threatening me?” Arthur asks, clearly delighted.

“That depends on your answer,” Merlin says slowly.

“Well,” says Arthur smugly, “first of all, was I right?”

“Yes,” Merlin says.

“Excellent, then,” Arthur replies. “I had thought you were going to be cross with me over it because the books don’t exactly show Hufflepuffs in the most favourable light…”

“You’re telling me,” Merlin grumbles.

“...but, since you’re obviously proud to be one,” Arthur continues, “I’ll tell you that I think you exemplify all the Hufflepuff qualities that the Sorting Hat spoke of: hard-work, justice, kindness, and especially loyalty. That’s really the one that does it. The intensity of your loyalty is without equal.”

“It has one equal,” Merlin corrects him, smiling softly and looking Arthur in the eye.

Arthur leans forward as if to kiss him, but stops a few centimetres short of his lips to add, “Actually, the real reason I knew you were a Hufflepuff is that you wear those Hufflepuff tracksuit bottoms around the flat most of the time, and you’ve got a scarf, and a hat, and three shirts, and—”

—

It’s not as though they didn’t have explosive rows back in Camelot, Merlin thinks. This isn’t a brand new thing—although he supposes in a way it is because it’s the first time Arthur’s been truly livid with Merlin since his return and especially since they’ve been a proper couple. Merlin’s sitting alone on the sofa, letting his leg bounce as he considers how best to rectify the situation, which is that Arthur has locked himself in the bedroom and won’t answer when Merlin knocks.

It’s possible that Arthur just needs time, though letting Arthur alone has never been Merlin’s strong point so hopefully it’s not going to come to that.

The conversation had started innocently enough—they’d been bickering good-naturedly about how nothing good ever came of venturing into the Valley of the Fallen Kings. Merlin had pointed out that Arthur was the first person to caution him against it, and then henceforth had just gone ahead and waltzed right in there without a thought whenever the fancy struck him, leaving Merlin to trail behind, shouting his own warnings back at him. That had segued into talking about the time Merlin was gravely injured there, how Arthur had thrown him over his shoulder and carried him most of the way out before they’d been foiled by…

“I could’ve taken those men,” Arthur had said, shaking his head.

“No, you couldn't have,” Merlin had told him.

“I could’ve,” Arthur had insisted. “I’d’ve taken them all out, but that bloody avalanche, those rocks came out of…”

He’d stopped talking and turned to face Merlin, slowly, stonily.

“You didn’t,” he had whispered, low and dangerous.

“Of course I did,” Merlin had told him. “I had to—there were too many of them for you to—”

“You’re telling me,” Arthur had started, in a tone of forced calm, “that you purposely separated yourself from me when you knew you were mortally wounded—you knew you would die if—”

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same,” Merlin had said, cutting him off. “Like you haven’t proven, time and again, that you would do the same. Look at me and tell me you’d have let me be slaughtered like you were about to be if you’d had the chance to prevent it. I saw an opportunity to save you and I took it. Story of my life, honestly.”

Arthur, unsurprisingly, had not said anything for a moment. He’d just breathed like a bellows and stared hard at the floor.

“I thought I was never going to see you again,” he’d said, scrubbing his hand over his face, “and then—God, we found you and you were covered in shit or mud or something and I didn’t even care. I allowed Gwaine to see me throw my arms around you; I didn’t care. You smelt like death but I couldn’t hold you tight enough.”

“You did?” Merlin had asked, tension momentarily forgotten in his confusion.

The look Arthur had given him at that was murderous.

“I’ve never been so relieved to see someone in my life,” Arthur had said, clipping the ends of his words.

“Sorry,” Merlin had told him, in what—in hindsight—was probably far too flippant a tone. “I was being controlled by Morgana at the time—she’d put that bloody Fomorroh under my skin to try and get me to kill you for her—I don’t remember a thing.”

It had been the wrong thing to say—Merlin knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth. Arthur hadn’t even looked at him—just stood up, strode down the hallway and into the bedroom and shut the door behind him with such deliberate care that Merlin almost wished he’d slammed it instead.

So now, after an hour and a half of silence, Merlin’s still really not sure what, if anything, he could potentially say or do to ameliorate the situation. Back in Camelot, they likely would have resolved such a dispute via what Merlin would’ve then referred to as horseplay, but which he now has realised was more like foreplay—a flimsy ruse to justify groping one another until they’d forgotten what was upsetting them in the first place. There’s a decent enough chance that if Merlin were to just barge into the bedroom and suggest that they work out their feelings by means of buggery, Arthur would go along with it. The reason he hasn’t already given this tactic a go is that there’s also a fairly significant possibility that it would exacerbate the situation further if Arthur recognised it for what it was: a gambit to avoid having a mature conversation about their problems. So he’s about ninety percent decided on not trying to get Arthur naked before they reconvene.

But either way Merlin has reached the limit of his patience for Arthur’s sulking, so he finally gets up and walks down the hall to unlock the bedroom with a spell.

Arthur is seated on his side of the bed, arms folded, and doesn't look up when Merlin enters the room.

“If you're sitting there waiting for me to apologise for saving your life, then I hope you're comfortable because it’s not going to happen,” Merlin tells him bluntly. “I wouldn't expect that of you, so I'd appreciate it if you showed me the same courtesy.”

“I thought you were dead,” Arthur says in a gravelly, raw sort of voice. “For two days, I thought I was never going to see you again.”

Merlin opens his mouth to reply but Arthur continues.

“I just kept thinking,” Arthur says, still as though he's speaking to the floor, “what if there was something I could've done differently? What if I had been smarter, or faster?”

“So you figured that having a snit about it over a thousand years later would help?” Merlin asks. “You didn't think maybe you ought to have just told me what was bothering you?”

Arthur doesn't answer him.

“God knows I understand how you felt, Arthur,” Merlin says, sinking down next to him on the bed—not touching, but close enough for Arthur to reach out to him if he wants to. “You don't think I wondered if there was anything I could’ve done to save you? I knew Mordred was going to kill you and toward the end I just tried literally anything I could think of to keep it from happening. And it happened anyway, and then you were dead for eleven centuries. So I'm not going to coddle you over this.”

Arthur looks a little stunned, as though this hadn't even occurred to him. Merlin thinks it's a unique brand of selfishness between the two of them—being angry at one another for the self-sacrificing nobility that's kept them apart. It's a trait they share and it's cost them dearly, but it's also forged a bond unlike any other.

“And apparently I missed a very sweet moment after you found me,” Merlin continues, keeping his voice as mild as possible. “I wish I hadn't. I would've loved to have had the memory of your arms around me during the millennium I was living without you.”

Merlin waits, tight-lipped, for a response. He’s never played this card before—the I’ve-waited-centuries-for-you flush—because it feels unfair to dredge it up all the time and he doesn’t want Arthur to think he’s angry about it or anything. But it seems particularly relevant here, and Merlin’s not above reminding Arthur of it every so often, when he gets like this.

“I'm,” Arthur says slowly, “being kind of a tosser, aren't I?”

“Story of your life,” Merlin replies. “Both of them. Also good on you for using that word right.”

“Thank you,” says Arthur. “And I'm sorry. Truly.”

“Besides, that's not nearly the most stupidly dangerous thing I've ever done for you—not by any means,” Merlin tells him.

“Oh God,” Arthur groans. “Dare I ask what is?”

“Hmm…” Merlin screws up his face, thinking. “Do you remember when I was locked in the dungeons?” Merlin asks.

Arthur snorts. “You're going to have to be a bit more specific.”

“Fair point,” Merlin concedes. “This was when Morgana was controlling Gwen, and everyone thought I'd poisoned you. You ‘miraculously’ recovered—”

“—your doing, I presume,” Arthur interrupts. “Though I’m not sure how you did it, seeing as you were still in the dungeons when I—”

“I’m getting to that bit,” Merlin says. “So, after dark, I magicked myself out and managed to make it to the courtyard without anyone seeing me. Then I climbed the tower to your chambers—”

“—I’m sorry, you what?”

“Climbed the tower,” Merlin enunciates, “to your chambers. Came in through your window. You were near death—I did a complicated bit of magic and stood there for possibly the longest minute of my life hoping it had—”

  
“Did you cry?” Arthur asks.

“Loads,” Merlin says. “Buckets. And then you woke, and as soon as I saw you were breathing and all I climbed back out the window, down the tower, and snuck back into the dungeons, where you found me next morning.”

Arthur stares at him incredulously for a moment before saying, “The only way you could’ve made that story more saccharine is if you’d claimed you’d saved me with true love’s kiss.”

“Gaius was there,” Merlin tells him. “I wasn’t about to kiss you in front of Gaius.”

“But you wept over my lifeless body while he watched?”

“That I couldn’t help,” Merlin admits. “But it wasn’t the first nor the last time—he had to have been fairly accustomed to the sight by the end.”

“I still think what you did in the Valley of the Fallen Kings was more dangerous,” Arthur says.

“Possibly, but does it really matter? I’d do them again,” Merlin says. “Any of those things. All of them. I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“Nor would I,” Arthur says, taking Merlin’s hand in his. “I have a great many regrets, but any risks I took for you are not amongst them. You’re worth a hundred of me.”

Merlin laughs softly. “I don’t know about that, you’re worth—no. No, I’m not doing this with you—this is going to become one of those I love you more, no I love you more conversations—”

“Dear God, no,” says Arthur. They look at one another helplessly for a few seconds.

“Shall we just get on with it then?” Merlin suggests, gesturing between them

Arthur tugs his shirt swiftly over his head. “By all means.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Sorting: I am aware that a lot of people have differing opinions on which Hogwarts houses Arthur and Merlin would be in and that in the Harry Potter universe Merlin is canonically a Slytherin. However, [dawnseeker](dawnseeker.tumblr.com) and I sat down and took the Pottermore quiz for both characters and this is what we got. We also discussed it at length and are in agreement that Arthur is a Gryffindor and Merlin is a Hufflepuff. You're certainly entitled to disagree with us, but I'm afraid we won't be convinced otherwise!
> 
> In case anyone was wondering, Merlin got a badger Patronus and Arthur had a Piebald Stallion.


	11. Very Good Advice

“Please don’t rip that—”

Merlin winces.

“—off.”

“It’s not going to bleed out,” Arthur says, rolling his eyes and wadding up the cotton and tape the nurse placed on his arm, throwing it in the bin outside the clinic. “Don’t be such a wimp. It’s a tiny prick—”

“No,  _ you’re _ a tiny prick—”

“—I’ve had worse injuries from picking roses.” Arthur continues over him.

“Well, it’s just that generally when physicians tell you to do something, you ought to listen,” Merlin says. “I mean, what if next time it’s ‘please leave your plaster cast on for six weeks, Arthur, and you—’”

“I know how to set bones,” Arthur cuts him off.

“You _ really _ don’t,” Merlin says. “But you  _ think _ you do, which is even worse. If you ever break anything, I’ll be forced to knock you out until I can get you to A&E, because otherwise you’ll actually try to set it yourself and wind up having to have an amputation.”

All things considered, the medical exam went better than expected. Merlin explained to the staff that Arthur’s parents had been holistic types who didn’t believe in innoculations, so Arthur essentially ended up getting all his jabs at once. Which was fine, except for the part when the doctor tried to warn Arthur that his tetanus jab might be a bit uncomfortable and Arthur informed her smoothly that he was certain it would be nothing in comparison to receiving a mortal wound from a blade forged in dragon’s fire.

“He’s a method actor,” Merlin had blurted out by way of explanation. “Getting into character.”

“Really?” she’d replied. “Anything I might’ve seen you in?”

“No,” Merlin told her. “More like...er...LARPing?”

Oh well. At least she’d believed him and stopped asking questions.

“Move your arm around a bit,” Merlin says, lifting Arthur’s arm from where it’s hanging by his side. “It’ll hurt less tomorrow if you—”

“Will you stop that?” Arthur says, yanking away from Merlin’s grasp. But then he puts his arm around Merlin’s shoulders and they walk the rest of the way to the car like that.

—

“Have you ever been in love with anyone else?” Arthur asks.

It’s almost a new ritual—nearly every night after they’ve gone to bed and as they’re falling asleep, one of them will ask a question or bring up a shared memory. Sometimes Merlin will just tell Arthur a story he already knows—like of the time Kilgharrah attacked Camelot—except he’ll give Arthur the  _ full  _ story, magic included. He thought Arthur was going to punch him on the nose last week when he admitted to vanquishing the dragon by  _ telling it to go away _ while Arthur was unconscious. 

“Not really,” Merlin says. Unbidden, Will pops into his mind and he smiles. “Maybe a little.”

“Tell me about him,” Arthur says.

“About Will?” Merlin asks. Arthur’s brow immediately furrows.

“Will?” he asks sharply. “But...no, I thought he was just—”

“Wrong Will,” Merlin corrects him. “Not  _ that _ Will, the other Will. Sixteenth Century Will. I don’t think you really want me to talk about this though, you’re going to get jealous over him.”

“Do I look like the kind of person to get jealous over someone you knew four hundred years ago?” Arthur demands.

“Absolutely yes,” Merlin tells him immediately. “You’re already getting jealous and I haven’t told you anything about him but his name and the fact that he's long dead.”

“No, I’m not,” Arthur insists. “I’m not. I won’t. I want to hear about him. Tell me.”

“I  _ promise _ I will say ‘I told you so’ when you get upset,” Merlin warns him, “but alright. Er...Will was someone I met in the late fifteen hundreds. A writer. I went to one of his plays, and afterwards he saw me in the tavern and asked me how I liked it. I told him I thought it was...I think the term I used was ‘over-sentimental’ and he called me a skeptic.”

Arthur laughs. “He had you all wrong then,” he says. “You’re not a skeptic—really more of a delusional optimist, actually.”

“Well, you aren’t familiar with this play yet,” Merlin tells him. “I stand by my original assessment. The story has been retold literally hundreds of times—they made  _ another _ film about it like...less than twenty years ago—and it’s  _ still _ the same maudlin, melancholic mush it was then _.  _ Anyway, we spent the whole evening going back and forth about that in the tavern and drinking and then he said if I went home with him I'd no longer be skeptical about two people falling in love in less than a day.”

“And you didn’t think  _ that  _ was over-sentimental?” Arthur asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I was more than a little drunk at the time,” Merlin admits. “And I liked him already, so—”

“What did you like about him?” Arthur asks. “Fair hair, I assume? Because I’m starting to suspect you prefer a certain type of—”

“Wrong,” Merlin tells him smugly. “Dark hair. Dark eyes. Smaller, slim.”

“But handsome?”

“I certainly thought so,” Merlin says. “But not  _ just  _ handsome—he was quite brilliant as well, and absurdly entertaining. And that one play I wasn’t keen on was an anomaly because I absolutely  _ loved _ nearly all the others.”

“Sounds like a lark,” Arthur grumbles.

“You have  _ no idea, _ ” says Merlin, chuckling. “I couldn’t tell him about Camelot or the magic or anything, obviously, but one time we got positively  _ smashed _ back at his and while we were lying there in bed afterwards I accidentally came out with the entire story about…”

Merlin cuts off, laughing so hard he almost can’t speak. He remembers Will in absolute clarity, his glassy eyes and rosy cheeks—face lit up with joy, watching Merlin gesticulate and giggling madly into his pillow. They’d spilt wine on the bed and that had been funny too, at the time—

“About _ what?” _ Arthur demands.

“...about the time,” Merlin manages to gasp, “about when you had those ears...and you couldn’t—you couldn’t even…”

“I recall that incident—I thought we had all agreed never to speak of it again  _ to anyone, _ ” Arthur mutters pointedly under his breath, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away. Merlin ignores him.

“Well, the next morning, we woke up and he mentioned it over breakfast and I was _ terrified  _ for a moment,” Merlin says, “because I thought he was going to start asking a lot of uncomfortable questions, but all he remembered was what a ridiculous story it was and ‘oh Robin, would you allow me to use it in the act I’m working on, this pompous prat who turns into an ass is so perfect for the story, you’re going to—’”

“Who the hell is Robin?” Arthur snaps.

“Oh,” Merlin says, “that’s me. I was Robin to Will. I’d run out of half-decent ‘M’ names at the time and—”

“Robin doesn’t suit you at all,” Arthur says shortly, looking deeply unimpressed.

“Will thought it did,” Merlin tells him. “God, he was so funny, he used to—”

“So you said,” Arthur all but snarls.

“You said you wanted to know,” Merlin reminds him. “He used to sneak bits of people he knew into the characters—they were never  _ exactly  _ like anyone but there was a line or a quality here or there and I’d remember it was similar to something I’d said or did, or his wife—”

“His  _ wife?” _ Arthur asks, plainly alarmed.

“Oh yeah, he was married,” Merlin says, waving away Arthur’s concern. “We were sort of an open secret, which was pretty much the best you could hope for back then. He used to write me poetry, you know.”

“Poetry?” Arthur says, vitriol dripping from his voice. “As you were once so gracious as to inform my knights, I  _ love  _ poetry. I'd be  _ delighted  _ to hear some of—”

“That's it, we're done talking about Will,” Merlin declares. “I promised you I'd say ‘I told you so,’ and now I'm saying it because you—”

“No, please  _ do  _ go on. Were they epics? Ballads?”

“Sonnets,” Merlin shoots back. “No one could spin verse the way he could—then or now.”

“He sounds  _ wonderful,”  _ Arthur bites out, so bitterly Merlin is surprised he hasn’t spit acid. Merlin feels a strong temptation to move in two opposing directions: to vilify Will for the sake of pacifying Arthur, and simultaneously to agree with Arthur and prattle on for ages about how  _ wonderful _ Will really was, just to goad him further. In the end, he decides to stick with telling the truth.

“He usually was,” says Merlin. “Not always though, he could be difficult at times. Will used to go into sulks the way you do—like the way you’re acting right now—although his were  _ far _ more productive than yours ever are. You brood and all I get is shouted at, he’d brood and the world got  _ Macbeth,  _ so…"

“Alright then  _ Robin _ ,” Arthur cuts him off, curiosity probably  _ too  _ satisfied. “So your favourite person of all time is  _ Will  _ now—”

“Gwen,” Merlin corrects him.

“Fine, Guinevere, then this  _ Will—” _

“No,” says Merlin. “Wrong again. It's Gwen, then a friend I had about two hundred years after I knew Will,  _ then  _ you,  _ then  _ Gaius, then  _ maybe  _ Will.”

“Now I want to know about the other friend,” Arthur replies. “The one who’s better than me, apparently, but not as good as Guinevere.”

“No,” says Merlin firmly, settling in with his head resting on Arthur’s shoulder. “I’ve learnt my lesson about your fragile ego. This is all you get: she was a writer, wickedly clever and sensitive and witty and I’ve never decided whether she would’ve hated or loved you.”

“Well that’s easy,” Arthur replies. “If she was indeed such a good friend, she would’ve loved me because you do.”

“What makes you think that?” Merlin asks. “She wasn’t at all fond of arrogant nobles. Although if you’d shown real penitence for your prattish ways, she might’ve forgiven you.”

“‘My prattish ways,’” Arthur repeats.

“Mmhm. I mean, you did turn out well enough in the end,” Merlin says.

“‘Well enough,’ he says,” Arthur mocks. “Whatever happened to me being the Greatest King Albion has Ever Known? How did I go from that distinction to ‘you turned out well enough?’’’

“Mm, I can’t keep up that deception forever,” Merlin says. “I know you too well—there’s too much wrong with you.”

“What, pray tell, is wrong with me?” Arthur says, turning onto his side and looking Merlin in the eye.

“Where to even begin?” Merlin sighs, glancing skyward as though asking the heavens for strength. “You’re a terrible cook.”

“And you’re not?” Arthur asks.

“I didn’t say that,” says Merlin. “We’re talking about  _ your _ issues right now, not mine. You get jealous over nothing.”

“I am  _ not _ jealous,” Arthur replies, though he swings a leg over Merlin’s body and rolls on top of him. “I’m not.”

“I can see that,” Merlin scoffs. “You think you’re much more impressive than you really are.”

“I am immensely impressive,” murmurs Arthur, leaning down to nuzzle kisses into Merlin’s neck.

“That’s what I mean,” Merlin says, trying not to let his voice get too breathy, though he can’t help but tip his head up to allow Arthur easier access. “You think...you think you’re _ so…” _

“I’m so what?” Arthur says against his nipple. “No, really, Merlin. Do go on.”

“You’re so…”

Arthur’s rubbing him through his pants and suddenly he can’t remember what exactly Arthur is ‘so’ and whether it’s meant to be a good or a bad thing.

“Up your own arse,” Merlin guesses.

Arthur purses his lips around an obvious laugh and lifts his eyes to Merlin’s.

“You’ll have to forgive me for  _ thinking I’m so up my own arse, _ ” Arthur replies, gaze still locked with Merlin’s and inching himself backward until his lips hover over the bulge in Merlin’s pants. “I could take you apart,” he says, low and deep, “with one blow.”

Merlin’s mouth opens as he struggles to maintain eye contact with Arthur over the rise and fall of his own chest.

“I could take you apart with less than that,” he breathes out—though he has no doubt it’s never been less true.

Arthur’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins, dropping his head and resting his cheek against Merlin’s thigh, one hand curled protectively around the other leg.

“I know,” he says, “but I appreciate you for allowing me to pretend otherwise from time to time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright everyone, this is the second-to-last chapter! I'll post the final one either tomorrow or the next day.


	12. Forever and Ever

“Where is the remote?” Merlin asks himself aloud, digging through the sofa cushions. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw it—I must’ve used it to turn off the telly before going down the the pub but then _you_ happened and I forgot all about...damn.”

“Does this one switch it on?” Arthur asks, pointing at the power button on the set itself.

“Yes,” Merlin says, “but we won’t be able to change channels without—”

Arthur turns the telly on, then goes back out the front door to fetch their trunks from the boot of the car. It’s kind of nice, Merlin thinks, even as he pulls back the cushions of the sofa in search of the remote, being back in the cottage for Christmas, despite the fact that he’s remembered why he rarely comes to Lake Avalon in the winter. It’s still swampy, but coated in a thin layer of ugly, grey frost. The lakeside where he’d once placed Arthur’s body into a boat is covered in crunchy, icy mud, the air simultaneously frigid and muggy. Inside though, the cottage feels extra cosy, and he’s looking forward to actually _using_ the hearth in the sitting room for the first time in ages.

_“...and Arsenal leads one to naught…”_

Merlin hears the door opening, and then Arthur’s footsteps as he carries the trunks through the sitting room, but the footsteps stop abruptly behind Merlin. He turns around to look at Arthur, who has frozen still in front of the telly, mouth hanging open.

“What is this programme?” he asks. Merlin feels his pulse quicken— _where is the damn remote?!_

“Nothing,” Merlin replies quickly, shoving his arm under the sofa and grasping blindly. “It’s nothing, just—”

_“...and that’s a foul! Folks, we’re undoubtedly looking at a red card for…”_

“No, really,” says Arthur, still rooted to the spot. “That poor chap just _ate_ it—you said we didn’t have tourneys anymore. This is—”

“He’s faking,” Merlin says. “They always are.”

“Well of course he is,” Arthur replies, crossing his arms over his chest, and cocking his head to the side. “Makes everything a bit more dramatic for the spectators. I never did that, obviously, but—”

_“Things are not looking good for…”_

“Oh they’ve disqualified him now,” Arthur commentates. “The one who kicked him.”

Merlin’s fingers close around the remote and he nearly sighs aloud in relief.

“Found it!” he cries. “I was hoping we could watch _Pride and—”_

“No, I want to watch this,” Arthur declares. “Explain the terms of the competition.”

It’s been nearly half a year since Arthur rose from Lake Avalon, and Merlin has, through great pains, barely managed to keep him from discovering what will now undoubtedly become the all-consuming obsession of his new lifetime: _football._

And now Merlin’s very own television has been his downfall. Such betrayal as has he hasn’t known in centuries. It’s even worse than the time Merlin was crossed by a telly in the a pub last month, which had happened to be showing the movie he’d promised himself he’d never let Arthur see: _Monty Python and the Holy Grail._ Arthur had watched about ten minutes before earning himself a lifetime ban from the pub by punching in the screen. Merlin glowers at the screen, wondering if all televisions have taken out a personal vendetta against him, as Arthur takes a seat on the sofa, trunks forgotten, eyes still glued to the game.

“I’ve seen people wearing those symbols before,” Arthur says suddenly, gesturing to one of the jerseys. “I thought they were family sigils.”

“They might as well be,” Merlin tells him, pulling up Tumblr on his mobile because he can already tell this is going to be a long day. “What footie team you support is certainly more important than your lineage these days.”

“Interesting,” says Arthur.

“Is it really?” Merlin grumbles.

“So what are the terms?” Arthur asks again. “How do you play?”

“It’s been the most popular sport in the world for decades and I still haven’t bothered to learn the rules,” Merlin tells him. “Why start now?”

“What’s the matter with you?” Arthur scoffs, looping his arm around Merlin’s shoulders and pulling him in close. Merlin softens a bit.

“It’s just the newest version of commoners gathering to watch the wealthy wallop on one another,” he mutters, leaning into Arthur’s shoulder. “Back then it was knighted noblemen hitting each other with blunt weapons, now it’s millionaire professional athletes plowing into each other over a ball. I don’t follow it.”

“You never really did understand the complexities of the melee,” Arthur says, still watching the match. “It’s not about _walloping,_ it’s about proving your skill—a skill you’ve honed through hard work and dedication to—”

Before Merlin can answer, Arthur frowns at the telly.

“No, that can’t be allowed,” he says, then pulls out his mobile.

The match drags on for about ten thousand hours, by Merlin’s approximation, during which Merlin feels as though he he can see Arthur’s blue eyes being replaced by a pair of cartoon footballs. In the span of an afternoon, Arthur manages to absorb more information about football than Merlin has learnt in the entire century he’s spent avoiding it and he sighs with relief when the match _finally_ ends...in a draw.

“I’ll be right back,” Arthur says as he gets up. “Just going to run to the toilet and then we can watch the next one.”

Merlin groans as loudly as he can at Arthur’s retreating back, but a question occurs to him just then.

“Arthur?” he calls.

“What?”

“Do you remember the time you tried to clean the bathtub with toothpaste?”

There’s a very long pause, followed by a flush, then Arthur’s footsteps drawing closer. He reappears in the doorway to the sitting room.

“I recall something like that,” Arthur says, leaning against the doorjamb.

“What actually happened in there?” Merlin asks, hanging his head over the back of the sofa and watching Arthur upside-down.

“Oh God,” Arthur groans. “You don’t want to—”

“I do,” Merlin insists. “I very much want to know. I’m convinced it’s something both embarrassing and hilarious and I really want to know what it was.”

“Fine,” says Arthur, walking toward him and sitting down heavily on the sofa. “So after I came out of the lake I was really hungry, and then I had the longest piss of all time and so forth…”

“Right,” says Merlin, drawing his knees up to his chest and turning to face Arthur. He is almost positive he knows where this is going but he’s dying to actually hear Arthur say it because Arthur gets all proper and posh when he’s flustered and it’s delightful to witness.

“Well,” Arthur says, drawing the word out, “that morning I woke up with...you know…”

Merlin tilts his head to the side and gives Arthur his best look of wide-eyed confusion.

“Hard, Merlin,” Arthur says with an eyeroll. “I woke up _hard._ I decided I’d rather not spend the rest of the day that way. So I intended to, you know, _take care of things_ …”

“Take care of things?” Merlin asks mildly.

Arthur looks at Merlin as though he’s considering hitting him over the head with a pillow.

“Yes, with my hand,” he says. “Surely you’re familiar with how that works, or do you need a demonstration?”

“If you are in fact offering to demonstrate,” says Merlin, “I’m not going to say no.”

“I was being facetious, I know you know how to—anyway. So I did _that,_ and I _swear to God_ it was a _pint_ of… I thought I was going to be sick.”

“Did it at least feel good on the way out?” Merlin asks.

“No,” says Arthur immediately. “It did at first like it always does, but after a few seconds I was just terrified that it was never going to end. But it did eventually, and then I suppose there was so much of it that it sort of plugged up the drain. I tried to take a step and I slipped and grabbed hold of the counter—”

“—which you shouldn’t have been able to do if you’d had the shower curtain shut like I told you—”

“—fortunate that I didn’t then, or I’d’ve hit my head, but anyway that was when the toothpaste fell into the tub. I tried to reach out and pick it up but I slipped again and stepped on it, and then it burst and got everywhere and I couldn’t get my balance so in the end I just sort of left it and hoped that it’d all go away by the time you thought to look in there.”

“You thought it’d just...disappear?”

“I panicked, ok?” Arthur says. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“You could’ve always just gone and fetched me,” says Merlin. “I cleaned out your chamberpot for years, did you really think I would’ve found this more revolting than _that?”_

“Look, have you ever had to try and resolve a crisis right after you’d just—I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“I’m sure you weren’t,” Merlin says smugly. “Thinking about me, were you?”

“Yes,” says Arthur, “of course I was, now can you please turn the sound back on so I can watch?”

Merlin sighs and unmutes the telly.

Several hours later, Merlin has just about reached the end of his patience for football when out of what feels like absolutely nowhere, he remembers Arthur’s ring. A feeling of great unease settles over him, a sort of all-consuming compulsion to give it back.

“Wait here,” he murmurs to Arthur. “I’ll be right back.” Arthur does not appear to notice he has left—he’s moved on to a repeat of last week’s match and remains fixated on the telly.

Merlin is so intent on actually bringing the ring to Arthur that he finds himself standing next to the sofa with the box in his hand before he’s even really figured out what he’s going to say.

“Arthur,” he says, “er...there’s something that I wanted to give you.”

Arthur glances over at him, back to the match, and then starts and swivels all the way round to face Merlin over the armrest—eyes zooming down to the box.

“What is that?” he asks quietly.

“Er…” Merlin opens the box and holds it out towards Arthur, who inhales sharply upon looking inside.

“Are you—” he starts, but Merlin suddenly remembers what he needs to say.

“I’m so sorry,” Merlin tells him in a rush. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you. It was…”

Arthur shakes his head, reaching out and picking up the ring. “You kept this?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin says again.

“Don’t be,” Arthur tells him at once. “The other one—”

“I gave that back to Gwen,” Merlin says. “I just...I kept this one because...it was _one_ thing, it was just—I couldn’t help it. I felt so terrible, but she never asked about it. I’m sure she knew I had it, I just—and then when you came back I forgot about it almost entirely and—”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, looking him in the eye. Merlin stops talking and holds his breath.

“Thank you,” Arthur says, “for returning it to me. I understand why you kept it, and I’m sure Guinevere did as well. Come sit back down.”

“I don’t to watch any more football,” Merlin says, because he can’t fathom it—not right now. His heart is still hammering and he doesn’t know why.

“Alright,” Arthur agrees, slipping the ring into the pocket of his jeans. He picks up the remote control and switches off the telly on his first try. “What would you like to do instead?”

“Do you want to have supper in front of the hearth?” Merlin asks him. “I picked up some roast chicken from the market before we left London, we can just heat it up and—”

“I’ll just go looking for firewood, shall I?” Arthur says with a smile. He gets up off the sofa and takes his coat off the hangers by the front door. “It’ll be like old times.”

“Except in old times _I_ was always the one who had to fetch the wood,” Merlin reminds him.

Arthur’s almost out the door when he turns back and says, “Consider this returning the favour then.”

In the twenty minutes it takes Arthur to collect enough wood for a fire, Merlin works himself into a jittery, nervous frenzy over the ring situation. He is both mortified and furious at himself for how he bollocksed it up—there was no reason to have done it immediately after he thought of it. He ought to have prepared better, to have sat Arthur down—not while he was watching football—explained how before he sent his body into Avalon he removed both his wedding ring and his favourite ring as tokens for Gwen, and then returned with them to Camelot. At his first audience with Gwen, the one in which she appointed him Court Sorcerer, he presented her with Arthur’s wedding ring, which she accepted gratefully and was eventually buried with. He’d had every intention of giving her the other one too, but at the last second he’d pocketed it in a rare fit of selfishness. The wedding ring had been a symbol of his union to Gwen, he’d reasoned, so she had the only right to it, but this ring… It didn’t symbolise anything. It was just one Arthur had liked the look of, enough so that he’d worn it almost continuously during the entire time Merlin had known him. So he kept it.

And after that, well...he’d felt too guilty about having held onto it in the first place to give it back. He’d come up with scenarios in which Gwen would ask why he hadn’t returned it to her straightaway and then she’d be angry or judgemental or… Realistically, he knew that she wouldn’t have been either of those things, but he hadn’t managed to overcome the fear enough to bring it up with her before she died.

So after that, he kept it because he was the only person to whom it held any real intrinsic value. And it was only right to have told this all to Arthur, but he’d been so flustered about returning it and having forgotten about it these past six months that bits of the story had come out in a jumbled mess and now Merlin’s _sure_ that Arthur resents him at least a little for not having given it back as soon as he’d come out of the lake and—

“Here I come,” Arthur calls, “bearing the wettest, greenest firewood in all the Five Kingdoms.”

He drops the armful of leafy branches on the hearthrug.

“Seriously though,” he says, “there’s nothing good out there, you’d think some of the plants would’ve died seeing as it’s the middle of winter but—”

“The foliage here is funny,” Merlin tells him, pulling the roast chicken out of the oven and placing it on a platter along with the veg and mashed potatoes and bread he’s prepared. “I don’t doubt it’s got something to do with magic but you’d think the Sidhe would try and clean it up a bit—it’s not very impressive-looking. I mean, if they’re still around. Who knows?”

“Perhaps that’s the point,” Arthur replies, hanging his coat back up and dropping his mittens on the kitchen table. “They make it look uninviting enough, no one will come out here to bother them. Kind of like what you’ve done with this cottage.”

Merlin’s heart is full to bursting at the shit-eating grin Arthur’s giving him, so much so that he can’t do anything but laugh as he crouches down next to the wood. He dries it off with magic before arranging it in the hearth while Arthur turns out all the lights in the cottage, then brings over their dinner and a bottle of wine. He sits down and watches Merlin expectantly in the semi-darkness.

“What are you waiting for?” Merlin asks him after a moment.

“I want to see you light it,” he replies. “With magic.”

Merlin says the spell and watches as flames crackle merrily to life. He turns to look at Arthur, who is watching the hearth as the fire throws his face into dramatic lights and shadows.

“Do you remember the first magic you showed me?” Arthur asks him. Merlin nods as he serves himself from their platter.

“Mmhm. The little fire dragon?” He doesn’t remember the dragon so much as the grip he’d had on Arthur’s shoulder because he’d been afraid that it was the last time Arthur would allow Merlin to touch him and it was as though he was subconsciously trying to get his fill.

“Do you think you could do it again?” Arthur asks.

“Sure,” says Merlin, raising his hand toward the flames. The dragon rises from the hearth and flies forward, hovering in front of Arthur. He looks very young in the flickering glow, young like they were when they first met. Though Merlin can’t remember the last time, if there ever was one, that he saw this expression on Arthur’s face. Enchantment. Awe. For a moment, his eyes appear almost golden.

The dragon dissipates and Merlin takes a bite of his buttered bread, but Arthur makes no movement toward the meal.

“Do you remember when I proposed marriage to Guinevere after filling her entire house with candles?” Arthur asks after a moment.

Merlin laughs, covering his mouth with his hand to avoid accidentally spraying Arthur with crumbs.

“Before that, when we got them all set up,” Arthur continues, “we realised we had to actually _light_ them all and it took us hours and hours because every time one of us would turn round we’d see one we missed.”

“I remember that,” Merlin says, swallowing his food. “What I can’t remember is why we thought the candles were a good idea in the first place.”

“I don’t know—I suppose we decided that candles are a traditional expression of romance. So the logic was that if one candle is romantic, then it stands to reason that hundreds of candles are a hundreds of times _more_ romantic, and then neither of us really thought through the practicality of the scenario. You kept accidentally snuffing them out because you were laughing so hard,” Arthur adds, “and then I would pretend to be cross with you for taking so long, and you’d laugh even _harder_ and—”

“Honestly,” Merlin chuckles, “it’s a wonder we didn’t burn down her house in the process.”

“No,” says Arthur immediately. “No, you wouldn’t have let that happen.”

“Of course not,” Merlin says, “but you couldn’t have known that, so—”

“You could’ve lit all the candles by magic while I wasn’t looking,” Arthur says.

“I could’ve,” Merlin agrees.

“Why didn’t you?”

“We were having too much fun, I suppose,” Merlin tells him. “You’d been so nervous earlier, and then you were laughing so much you kept snorting while we were lighting them...I guess I just didn’t want it to end. I just wanted you to stay happy.”

Merlin prepares for the comment he knows is coming about how he’s being a sentimental fool, but it doesn’t arrive. Arthur is looking into the fire again, his expression soft and thoughtful.

“I don’t even know where you’d find that many candles now,” he says.

“Amazon?” Merlin guesses. “What on earth would you need them for?”

“I wouldn’t,” says Arthur. “They were ridiculous anyway.”

“Maybe a little,” Merlin admits. “But it was the gesture, I think, that was sweet. You had all the money in the world, so what really mattered was your time. And you spent bloody ages lighting them all.”

“We did,” Arthur agrees.

He takes a deep breath and then goes silent again, but he looks as though he’s steeling himself for something. It’s almost what he used to be like when he was preparing for battle, gathering his courage...but not the same. Merlin can’t explain how.

“Merlin,” Arthur says quietly, finally, “I have something I want to ask you.”

Merlin, who feels that Arthur has probably reached his daily limit for sentimentality, swallows the gulp of wine he’s just taken before saying, “Is this going to be a football question? Because I’ve already told you that I don’t—”

“No,” Arthur interrupts, “it’s not about football.”

He chews on his bottom lip for a moment before turning to face Merlin fully, carefully placing their dinner on the other side of his body and moving closer until their shoulders are touching.

“It’s about my ring,” he says, and oh God he _is_ cross, he’s going to be angry with Merlin for having forgotten about it for six months and then—

“It’s funny,” he continues, barreling right through Merlin’s little internal meltdown, “when you gave it to me earlier it almost felt like...I almost thought you were going to ask me to marry you.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, words tumbling out of his mouth before his brain has time to filter them, “I wasn’t, I promise, it’s not that—I just don’t—”

His mouth stops working when Arthur takes his hand, pressing the ring into his palm before folding it closed. Arthur places his other hand on top of Merlin’s so that he’s got Merlin’s hand clasped between both of his.

“Good,” Arthur tells him, “because I want to use it to ask _you_ to marry _me.”_

There is nothing Merlin can think of to say in that moment that could possibly suffice. He looks up from their hands to Arthur’s face—Arthur catches his gaze and holds it.

Merlin shakes his head, “I can’t accept this,” he whispers. “It’s the only thing you have left of Camelot, it’s—”

“It _really_ isn’t,” Arthur says, not breaking eye contact for a moment. “I had everything I needed from Camelot long before you gave it to me. And I want for you to wear it, if you’ll have me.”

Merlin’s sure he looks approximately how he did when Arthur first showed up naked on the road in the middle of the night six months ago, but apparently the gormless shock on his face isn’t enough to deter Arthur because he keeps talking:

“You’ve done so much for me,” Arthur tells him. “Actually, I think the truth is closer to _you have done more for me than any one person on this earth has ever done for another_. And there’s nothing at all that I can do or say to—”

“I don’t want you to repay me,” Merlin interrupts.

“It’s not repayment,” Arthur insists. “It’s reciprocity. I’d love you all the same if you’d done the things you have for someone else. It’s your character that matters—your loyalty, your dedication and selflessness and how difficult you are—”

“I’m not difficult,” Merlin says. “I’m actually quite easy to—”

“Nothing about you is easy,” Arthur insists, still holding his hand. “You’re extremely difficult in every way—it’s one of your best and worst qualities. You’ve challenged me every day I’ve known you. And like you said, back then I had all the money in the world. What I didn’t have was time, and I chose to spend nearly every moment I did have with you.”

Arthur takes a deep breath.

“I know we haven’t entirely discovered if there is a greater reason for my return,” he says. “I’m not certain of much—there are still so many questions. Will I ever get my sword back?”

Trust Arthur to start thinking about swords in the middle of a marriage proposal.

“Am I supposed to be King of someplace? If so...where? When? How?”

Merlin shakes his head, he doesn’t know either.

"But I’ve _never_ been so certain about anything as I have about this,” Arthur says, tightening his hold on Merlin’s hand. “That you and I are meant to be together. That you are the great love of my life—of this life, and the last one. That there’s nowhere I belong more than in your arms. That I want to be your husband.”

“Yes,” Merlin whispers.

“So, would you—” Arthur stops. “Is that a yes you agree, or yes you’ll marry me?”

“It’s both,” Merlin tells him. “Of course it is. What kind of person agrees to anything in the middle of a marriage proposal if they’re going to say no in—”

Merlin is unable to finish his sentence—Arthur leans forward and kisses him hard, lets go of his hand only to pry open his fist and fumble for the ring.

“Are you taking it back now?” Merlin chuckles against his lips.

“No, you idiot,” Arthur whispers back. “I’m trying to put it on you, that’s how proposals generally work, if you could just—hang on.”

Arthur pulls back, frowning at the ring and at Merlin’s hand.

“How have I never noticed how skinny your fingers are?” Arthur asks. “I don’t think you—”

“There’s nothing wrong with _my_ fingers,” Merlin tells him. “It’s you—you’ve got big, giant...sausage fingers—”

“Sausage fingers?” Arthur repeats as though he’s about to be indignant, but instead he barks out a laugh, reaching up to cup Merlin’s face in his hand.

“God,” he breathes, grinning widely.

“Well you do,” Merlin says, very reasonably. “Why do you think I haven’t been wearing it these past eleven centuries?”

“I love you,” Arthur replies. “I really do. More than...more than I’ve ever loved anything in this world.”

He pauses for a moment to gaze into Merlin’s eyes.

“And can’t you just shrink the thing?” he asks. “Is there not a spell for—”

“I think I could,” Merlin says. “I just want to be careful, it was the only thing I had and…”

“Well now it isn’t,” Arthur says. “It’s just a ring. If it goes funny, we’ll find someone to make another.”

Merlin takes a deep breath and shrinks it down. Infinitesimally. By millimetres. Arthur takes it from him and slides it onto Merlin’s right index finger.

Arthur pushes Merlin back onto the rug and crawls over him, pressing his forehead into Merlin’s and taking a deep breath.

“I can’t believe you said I have sausage fingers,” he whispers, and then goes still and winces.

“What is it?” Merlin asks.

“I’ve just stuck my foot in the mashed potatoes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me until the end! I can't tell you how much I've appreciated all the comments and subscriptions. It is an honour indeed to write for such a wonderful fandom!

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a lyric in Go The Distance from Disney's Hercules and all the chapter titles are titles of Disney songs because...reasons?
> 
> As always, many thanks to Dawn_Seeker and Jillian_Bowes for beta reading and encouragement.


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